RFS 465 0123

Social Stratification of Musical Tastes : Questioning the
Cultural Legitimacy Model

Philippe Coulangeon
Dans Revue française de sociologie 2005/5 (Vol. 46), pages 123 à 154
Éditions Éditions Ophrys
ISSN 0035-2969
ISBN 2708011006
DOI 10.3917/rfs.465.0123
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R. franç. sociol., 46, Supplement, 2005, 123-154
Philippe COULANGEON
Social Stratification of Musical Tastes:

Questioning the Cultural Legitimacy Model
ABSTRACT
In sociological study of artistic tastes, the behavior of the upper classes is usually char-
acterized by a penchant for “highbrow” arts and simultaneous rejection of popular arts and
the products of mass culture. However, the trends brought to light by analysis of cultural
practices survey data do not entirely confirm this representation. What distinguishes upper
class behavior is in fact not so much familiarity with “legitimate” culture, as is often
claimed, but diversity of stated preferences, in contrast to members of lower-status classes,
whose preferences appear more exclusive. A contrast can therefore be established between
the traditional model of cultural legitimacy and a model in terms of eclecticism. This article
seeks to assess the import of the latter model on the basis of data on preferences in music
from a 1997 survey of French cultural practices. First, French practices in this area unequiv-
ocally confirm the relevance of the eclecticism model, though that model appears more an
extension of the cultural legitimacy model than a refutation of it. Second, the preference
typology constructed through analysis of the data, and distribution of individuals by social
factors among five music-listener profiles defined on the basis of that typology, forefront
the importance of generation differences and uneven distribution of cultural capital and
musical competence.

Music is everywhere: at home, in the car, in shops and restaurants. Its
pervasive presence in everyday life, intensified by the increase in number of
means for diffusing or listening to it due to the development of digital tech-
nology, goes hand in hand with diversification of music use, from solitary
listening to active playing by way of overtly decorative uses (background or
mood music). Such diversification amplifies differentiation of styles and
genres, this in turn fulfilling a crucial function in the music sector of the
economy. In fact, the recording industry, a borderline case of monopolistic
competition and flexible specialization where distribution concentration has
long gone together with highly differentiated products and audiences
(Hennion, 1981), requires strong preference segmentation. In this respect,
sociology of tastes in music is directly relevant to the concerns of marketing
professionals, and cultural practice surveys apprehend music-related behavior
by means of the same classification systems used in the recording industry. (1)
(1) This point makes it a particularly 1997), because the nomenclature of music
delicate undertaking to compare data from the genres has not been stable from one survey to
four French Ministry of Culture surveys of the next.
French Cultural Practices (1974, 1981, 1988,
123
Revue française de sociologie
Stated music preferences continue to be particularly strong indicators of

social class. Since music is not part of shared school-learned culture in
France, it is an area where we can expect primary groups –family environ-
ment, peer group, ethnic community– to have a strong influence. Tastes in
music have therefore long been a research focus for sociology of cultural
practices (Weber, 1977; Schuessler, 1980). This article examines the social
stratification characteristics of the music preferences of the French on the
basis of the afore-cited national survey on French Cultural Participation data
(Donnat, 1997), chiefly in order to assess the relevance of the cultural legiti-
macy theory (Bourdieu, 1979) vs. the “omnivore/univore” hypothesis
(Peterson, 1992), the opposition that has for all intents and purposes struc-
tured the research field of social stratification of tastes since the early
1990s. (2)
Testing the cultural legitimacy theory against the

“omnivore/univore” hypothesis
The strength of ties between esthetic preference orientation and social

status, origin, and cultural capital variables has been widely attested empiri-
cally (Bourdieu, 1979; Di Maggio and Mohr, 1985; Van Eijck, 1997). It is at
the core of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, with its vision of a preference space
unified by a functionalist conception of the tie between belonging to the upper
classes, having a taste for the learned or highbrow arts, and simultaneously
rejecting popular arts and culture. This conception was shaken in the early
1990s, however, by a series of empirical studies bringing to light increased

eclecticism in upper class tastes, particularly in the area of music (Peterson
and Simkus, 1992; Peterson and Kern, 1996; Van Eijck, 2001).
Habitus and distinction
Bourdieu’s sociology of tastes implies two fundamental concepts: habitus

and distinction. The habitus concept associates orientation of artistic prefer-
ences with the deterministic idea of dispositions acquired during the primary
socialization stage that then continue to frame all behaviors (Bourdieu, 1980).
Since the effect of habitus is due in large part to informal impregnation mech-
anisms, it does not involve a genuine learning process, and this characteristic
of habitus becomes particularly salient in the sphere of musical tastes, inef-
fable par excellence, where production and transmission of dispositions
(2) The present text is a reworked version for making the 1997 data available to me, and
of a paper given in Brisbane at the Fifteenth Ionela Roharik for her ongoing technical assis-
Congress of the International Sociological tance and helpful suggestions. All imperfec-
Association. Special thanks to Louis-André tions are, of course, the sole responsibility of
Vallet for his valuable advice and remarks; also the author.
to Olivier Donnat and Irène Fournier Mearelli
124
Philippe Coulangeon
involve largely implicit, unconscious processes (Bourdieu, 1979, pp. 70-87).

In this respect, habitus is not an avatar of human capital (Becker and Stigler,
1974). However, the space of social structure positions is linked to that of
esthetic preferences by the structural homology principle at the core of
Bourdieu’s theoretical model in La Distinction: the social identity of the
subject of esthetic taste has as much to do with expressed distaste for prefer-
ences attributed to other social groups, distaste that the subject’s position in
the social space of tastes structurally conditions her to experience, as with
positive adherence to the preferences of her milieu of origin, for which her
dispositions program her (Bourdieu, 1979, pp. 64-65). The tastes of the
“dominant” are generally defined in this way; for music, if we limit ourselves
to a definition of preferences in terms of “genres,” this means an unambig-
uous penchant for highbrow genres (classical, opera, contemporary classical)
and an equally pronounced rejection of popular or commercial genres.
This view requires a unified, hierarchically arranged vision of the space of
lifestyles, precisely the view that informs cultural legitimacy theory. Through
the emulatory behavior elicited in the other social categories, this view goes,
the lifestyle of the elites promotes cultural integration of society at large –a
functionalist vision of social distribution of tastes based primarily on the idea
that the hierarchy of cultural preferences represented by the “high-
brow”/“lowbrow” opposition (Gans, 1974, 1985; Levine, 1988) is internalized
at all levels of the social structure.
The “omnivore/univore” hypothesis: blurring the boundary between

highbrow and lowbrow

In a 1992 article on distribution of musical preferences by occupational
status based on American data from the 1982 Survey on Public Participation
in the Arts, Peterson and Simkus significantly inflect the cultural legitimacy
model, showing that the highly educated upper classes are distinguished from
the other categories not only by a penchant for highbrow music but also by the
eclecticism of their tastes (Peterson and Simkus, 1992). In contrast, a greater
number of exclusive-type music-lovers, the extreme case being “fans,” were
to be found in the lower-status classes. Moreover, analysis of 1992 SPPA data
showed that this phenomenon had become accentuated over time: “snobs,”
characterized by their exclusive taste for highbrow music, were being over-
taken by “omnivores,” who simultaneously preferred music genres situated
inside and outside the field of highbrow music (Peterson and Kern, 1996).
Peterson’s observation of increasing eclecticism in upper-class musical
tastes is part of wider-ranging thinking on the declining power of highbrow
arts in symbolic identification of the lifestyles of social groups (Peterson,
1997), a decline in turn linked to the development of cultural industries,
which formally make a great variety of cultural products available to the
greatest number, this in turn an effect of nationally but also transnationally
unified cultural production markets (Wilensky, 1964; Di Maggio, 1977;
125
Peterson and Kern, 1996), which in turn works to break down the barrier
between highbrow and lowbrow art, while in music the same effect was being
produced by the fact that the scope of art-subsidizing had been broadened to
include jazz.
This transformation of upper-class cultural attitudes, interpreted generally
as a pulling back of the boundaries between social groups drawn by differenti-
ation in esthetic preferences and cultural practices, has offered a foothold to
“postmodernity” theses holding that industrial production of symbolic
commodities and the arrival of the leisure society was gradually undermining
the cultural elites’ monopoly over esthetic norm production and value scales,
to the benefit of coexistence of plural judgment scales, i.e., a “democratic
invasion” of the art world (Michaud, 1997) that calls into question the
unifying model of cultural legitimacy at the core of Bourdieu’s notion of
symbolic domination (Featherstone, 1995). But it is not certain that this blur-
ring of the boundaries between learned and popular arts is enough to invali-
date the cultural legitimacy model.
Eclecticism and legitimacy
Two arguments may be made against the “postmodern” interpretation of

the rise of taste eclecticism and the decline of the role attributed to familiarity
with learned or highbrow arts in constructing upper-class identity. To begin
with, these trends are not strictly assimilable to a transformation in individu-
als’ behavior. The changes observed at the level of aggregated data primarily
reveal fragmentation of a once uniform upper-class lifestyle, which in turn

reflects the enlarged social base from which these classes are recruited,
forefronting the new recruits, who adopt some of the behaviors characteristic
of the group they now belong to while maintaining the trace of their original
cultural environment (Van Eijck, 1997). The rise in taste eclecticism should
therefore be interpreted primarily as a secondary effect of the structural
component of social mobility.
But to this morphological factor must be added the fact that diversified
stated preferences do not necessarily imply indifference to distinctions and
esthetic hierarchies, as is shown by empirical studies of both American and
Dutch data done to assess Peterson and Simkus’s hypotheses (Peterson and
Kern, 1996; Bryson, 1996, 1997; Van Eijck, 2001). Peterson and Kern agree
that distinction strategies do not pertain solely to objects consumed but also
how they are consumed (Bourdieu, 1979). Music offers many examples of
how social differences are expressed through various modes of appropriating
works and styles. There is of course the case of jazz and the entire
African-American musical tradition: since the 1920s African-American
music, originally used by lower-status classes for entertainment and dance,
has been the focus of estheticized listening in intellectual circles (Leonard,
1962). Clearly there is no surer way for upper-status class members to affirm
their symbolic domination than borrowing forms of expression from outside
126
Philippe Coulangeon
the perimeter of highbrow art, thereby manifesting a capacity to culturally

empower or rehabilite that radically distinguishes them from lower-status
class members. (3) Conversely, the relative popularizing of certain works of
highbrow culture by mass culture industries gave members of the upper
classes an incentive to be eclectic, as manifested emblematically by the
increase in cultivated taste for jazz, which can be interpreted as a direct result
of classical music’s becoming readily available and commonplace after the
1970s in the form of records and CDs, and the post-World War II
marginalization of avant-garde highbrow music (Menger, 1986; Donnat,
1994).
Distribution of music preferences in the survey

of French cultural practices
In this section I use 1997 responses to a question in the Ministry of

Culture’s Enquête sur les Pratiques Culturelles des Français [survey of
French Cultural Practices] on genres of music most frequently listened to, to
assess the strength and meaning of the “omnivore/univore” model’s effect on
the cultural legitimacy theory. (4) The analysis was restricted to sample indi-
viduals over 15 years of age who had completed secondary education at the
time of the survey: 4,074 of the 4,353 individuals sampled. (5)
The dimensions of social stratification of preferences: eclecticism, generation,

cultural legitimacy

I have chosen to analyze responses to the question of genres of music most
frequently listened to rather than preferred genres of music primarily because
of the constraints of the 1997 survey questionnaire: the latter question does
(3) “The asymmetry of symbolic exchange structure, see Donnat (1997).

is never as visible as in the privilege of (5) In the following analysis, particular
symmetry enjoyed by the dominant, who can importance is granted to the holder of the
both draw a sense of their own dignity from the baccalauréat [high school leaving exam and
cultural ‘indignity’ of the dominated’s practices degree]/non-holder distinction. This restriction
and dignify ‘undignified’ practices by deigning circumvents the risk of treating “definitive”
to borrow them. By thus exercising their power non-holders and adolescent “not yet holders”
to rehabilitate, they reinforce certainty of their the same way. However, given our focus here it
legitimacy. More crudely put, there is no reason also represents a limitation, since it leads to
to describe as fascination with the value or excluding a sub-population made up of some of
beauty of popular culture what is in fact for the the heaviest consumers of recorded music. The
dominant only the exercise of their symbolic musical preferences of this group deserve
‘droit du seigneur’” (Jean-Claude Passeron in specific study. Moreover, a degree of bias is
Grignon and Passeron, 1989, p. 61). created by leaving out lycée students since this
(4) Survey conducted in March and April produces a sample with an over-representation
1997 with a sample of 4,353 persons deter- of young people who either finished or stopped
mined by the quota method. For a complete their schooling early.
presentation of survey methodology and sample
127
not allow for multiple responses and therefore cannot be used to test the
“omnivore/univore” hypothesis. It is by no means obvious how to estimate
taste with responses on practice, however, when practice is subjected to
constraints independent of taste, namely related to age or geographic location
(Hugues and Peterson, 1983). While this argument, cited by Peterson and
Simkus (1992) to explain their choice of an approach in terms of taste rather
than practice, makes sense with regard to genres of concerts attended, it is less
persuasive for listening to recorded music, where constraints of this sort may
reasonably be assumed to be much less strong. Furthermore, the matter of
grasping “latent” tastes, i.e., independent of actual practices, seems compli-
cated by sensitivity to legitimation effects induced by the survey question-
naire –Hugues and Peterson’s argument can be turned back on itself. Unless
we hypothesize a nomenclature of tastes in music that is perfectly neutral
socially and culturally, it is likely that what is measured in measuring genres
of music most often listened to is much closer to individuals’ real preferences
than what is measured in questioning respondents abstractly on their tastes;
the risk in the second case is especially high since individuals are likely to
“valorize” their responses in accordance with the implicit hierarchy of
musical genres proposed by the questionnaire. The understanding here, then,
is that despite the reservations just evoked, genres of recorded music most
often listened to is a satisfactory means of estimating music preferences.
Distribution of preferences in music
The music genres nomenclature used from here on corresponds strictly to

the one used in the Culture Ministry questionnaire. Table I reproduces the list
of genres and gives for each the percentage of survey population citing it

among most listened-to genres of music. Immediately observable is the fact
that nearly half of respondents cite the item corresponding to “pop music,
songs,” undoubtedly the most heterogeneous and polysemic of all proposed
genres, and that only four other genres are cited by at least 10% of the
sample. (6)
Table II shows distribution of number of genres most listened to by occupa-
tional status. Regardless of this category, citing only one genre is the modal
situation, but extremes (“none” or “more than two genres”) have a significant
category-separating effect, as indicated by the χ2 independence test, which
brings outs three distinct groups: farmers and retirees, over-represented for the
“none” response; manual workers and clerical, more than half of whom cite one
genre only; and managers, mid-level occupations, and students, the only cate-
gories for which a majority of respondents cited more than one genre.
(6) The category “songs, pop,” which and/or a political message], is not fully satis-
offers respondents citing it the possibility of fying because it combines and confuses “genre”
specifying whether they listen above all to and “period” sorts of logic, moving respondent
songs dating from before WWII, from the to position himself in generational terms. The
1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s or 1990s, or same procedure, with the same limitation, was
“chansons à texte” [lyrics with poetic ambitions used for “rock.”
128
Philippe Coulangeon
The logical continuation of this argument is to cross the degree-of-eclecti-

cism-by-occupational-status indicator from Table II with genres cited in
Table I to discover diversity of possible combinations of genres cited and
degree of eclecticism. This is beyond the power of bivariate analysis and is
most effectively undertaken through Multiple Correspondence Analysis
(MCA), the main results of which are presented in the following section.
TABLE I. – Genres of music most often listened to (%)
Pop, songs 47.0

International pop (disco, dance, techno, funk, etc.) 19.9
Classical music (including baroque) 18.6
World music (reggae, salsa, African, etc.) 10.4
Rock 10.2
Background music or dance music (tango, waltz) 7.3
Jazz 7.3
Folk or traditional music 4.9
Opera 3.8
Musical or film music 3.5
Light opera 3.5
Hard rock, punk, trash, heavy metal 2.4
Rap 2.2
Contemporary classical music 1.3
Children’s music 1.0
Military music 0.9
Other genres 1.5
Source: Enquête sur les pratiques culturelles des Français, 1997, Ministère de la Culture,
Département des Études et de la Prospective (DEP).

Reading: 47% of respondents cite pop music and songs among genres of music listened to most often.
As this question allows for multiple responses, the citation rate total for all genres is over 100.
TABLE II. – Number of genres cited as music genres most often listened to by occupational status
None One Two >Two All N

Farmers 23.1 44.8 26.1 6.0 100.0 76
Tradespeople, Shopkeepers 12.7 44.4 24.4 18.5 100.0 150
and Business Owners
Managers 2.4 43.0 31.6 23.1 100.0 279
Mid-level occupations 2.2 45.2 33.8 18.9 100.0 448
Clerical 6.1 53.6 26.5 13.8 100.0 701
Manual workers 6.9 55.1 26.4 11.6 100.0 664
Students 0.4 40.8 30.9 28.0 100.0 154
Retirees 32.4 38.4 19.1 10.1 100.0 987
Other unoccupied 17.4 45.0 26.0 11.6 100.0 615
All 14.0 46.2 25.9 14.0 100.0 4074
χ2 = 533
df = 24
p <.0001
Source : Enquête sur les pratiques culturelles des Français, 1997, Ministère de la Culture, DEP.
129
Preeminence of the omnivore/univore opposition
The 4,074 individuals studied in the MCA are characterized by 17 dichoto-

mous variables that reproduce the list of 17 music genres explicitly presented
to respondents in the questionnaire (Table I). The variables have a value of 1
when corresponding genre is cited among genres most listened to, 0 if not
cited. (7) The variable of total number of genres cited as most listened to,
coded according to the four possible modalities in Table II, is then added in.
All these variables are processed as active variables in the MCA, the aim of
which is to bring out variety of combinations of different genres listened to
most often and degree of eclecticism in practice.
Individuals in the sample were also characterized by six other variables
(age, sex, occupational status, educational attainment [highest educational
degree], and income), processed as complementary variables whose position
on the dispersion axes constructed by the active variables was taken into
account in interpreting the behavior and esthetic orientation models suggested
by factor analysis results.
The first factor isolated by the analysis (Figure I) is primarily constructed
by the “number of genres cited” variable, and arranges individuals hierarchi-
cally by degree of eclecticism of declared preferences regardless of content of
genres combined, in contrast to the second and following factors, which are
more clearly constructed on stylistic oppositions (Figures I, II, and III). The
difference between percentage of total point cluster variance explained by the
first factor (12.5%) and percentage explained by each of the other factors
shows that this first factor is more explicative of dispersion in observations
than is the distribution of preferences among the various music genres
produced by the other factors. Moreover, the arrangement of positions for

income and educational attainment variables for this first factor (Figure I)
suggest a link between extent of declared preferences regardless of content
and volume of individuals’ monetary and cultural resources that is not clearly
(7) The architecture of the questionnaire people, these are important means of listening
uses two successive questions to filter the to music. Still, respondents may reasonably be
question pertaining to music genres most often assumed to have implicitly included
listened to. The first of these concerns whether radio-listening practices in their response. In
recorded music is possessed in respondent’s any case, questions pertaining to radio listening
household; the second asks for a list of genres elsewhere in the questionnaire do not allow for
of music owned. Respondent is then invited to satisfactorily approaching distribution of
designate genres she listens to most frequently preferences since they do not use the same
on the basis of her response to the second genres nomenclature as the one for listening to
question. This question thus seems to narrow disks and cassettes. Moreover, there is no
the field of stated preferences to disks or reason to hypothesize a massive presence of
cassettes available within the household, exclusive radio listeners within the sample. In
excluding radio listening, for example, and fact, number of CD players owned and
practices external to the household, though frequency of radio listening seem very closely
among certain sub-populations, namely young correlated.
130
Philippe Coulangeon
interpretable in terms of social and cultural stratification of tastes. The

eclectic music-lover suggested by the first factor can thus be analyzed as an
enlightened consumer who maximizes his musical satisfaction by diversi-
fying centers of interest. Secondly, the link between cultural capital and
esthetic tolerance brought out by the tight correlation between educational
attainment and diversity of musical interests tends to validate for artistic
tastes a classic sociology of political attitudes hypothesis (Adorno, 1950;
Lipset, 1960; Inglehart, 1990): cultural capital manifests itself not so much
in a penchant for learned or highbrow culture as a capacity to interpret and
assimilate novelty and difference –precisely the interpretation of the effect
of cultural capital in terms of esthetic tolerance that is at the core of the
omnivore/univore model. In the first analysis, interpretation of the first
factor seems to support Peterson’s thesis. However, examination of the other
factors brings to light that at an eclecticism level fixed by the first factor, the
social and cultural taste stratification mechanisms remain highly relevant.
FIGURE I. – Space of musical tastes (I). Map of first two MCA factors
131
FIGURE II. – Space of musical tastes (II). Map of factors 1 and 3
FIGURE III. – Space of musical tastes (III). Map of factors 2 and 4

132
Philippe Coulangeon
Stratification of preferences by generation
The second factor, which explains slightly over 9% of total variance,

appears sharply structured by the opposition between two groups of music
genres: international pop, world music, rap, hard rock, and rock on one hand;
jazz, classical, opera, light opera on the other. But the second dispersion axis
is not readily interpretable in terms of cultural legitimacy either. The genres
situated in the top half of the map of the first two factors (Figure I), which
strongly contribute to the second factor, represent a strikingly heterogeneous
set with regard to the cultural preference hierarchy: classical music and opera
end up with light opera and background music. At a given level of eclecti-
cism, preferences are in fact differentiated more by age; age positions are
highly distinct and tiered along the second factor. The content of the two
groups of musical genres produced by the second factor suggests that age
should be considered more an indicator of generational status than position in
the life cycle. In the bottom half of the map of the first two factors, rap and
genres categorized under the generic appellation “international pop” appear
highly emblematic of young people’s musical culture in the 1980s and 1990s,
not the musical culture of young people in general.
Average taste and highbrow taste
The other factors are also structured by the opposition between different
combinations of musical genres. The third factor fairly sharply distinguishes
between songs, well ahead of all other genres cited, and less frequently cited
genres with sharper esthetic profiles (namely hard rock and rap). The map of

factors 1 and 3 (Figure II) brings out “average taste” characteristics more
sharply; these may be defined not only by preferences oriented toward pop
but also measured eclecticism (one or two genres cited, i.e., the two most
frequent modalities [see Table II]).
Cultural legitimacy is more relevant for interpreting factor 4 (Figure III),
which explains 7.15% of total variance. This factor is clearly constructed on
an opposition between classical music, jazz, or opera listeners on the one
hand; listeners of such music genres as background music, film music, or rap
on the other. Moreover, the ambiguity in the genres nomenclature, namely
that it combines esthetically defined components with functionally defined
ones such as background or film music, points to social differentiation of
music uses, though this question is at the margins of taste stratification strictly
speaking. Music that is appreciated for itself stands in contrast here to accom-
paniment music (film, dance, and background music) but also to genres of
music in which discourse has priority over the musical component itself (as in
rap). It is of interest in this connection that jazz’s incorporation into the pole
of cultural legitimacy, as shown in preference positioning for this factor,
occurred only after jazz music was defunctionalized; its dance music dimen-
sion has virtually disappeared today. In other words, cultural legitimacy is
defined not only in relation to segmentation into music genres, but also use
133
differentiation, the opposition being between “pure” and “functional”

listening. (8)
Like the eclecticism axis, the cultural legitimacy axis is closely linked to
cultural capital and socio-occupational variables. It tends to isolate managers
from all other socio-occupational categories, whereas the eclecticism axis
brings out the position of mid-level professions and students as well.
Cultural legitimacy and generation
Once the age variable has been understood as an indicator of generation

rather than position in the life cycle, the fit between factors 2 and 4
(Figure III) enables us to visualize a combination of two complementary prin-
ciples of musical preference stratification: generation and cultural legitimacy.
The combination of these two principles shows that the attraction to highbrow
genres of music defined more, for extent of preferences, by moderate eclecti-
cism (two genres cited) than exclusive taste for classical music, is accompa-
nied over time by a redefinition of the perimeter of legitimate taste. The pole
of taste for the highbrow music genres, situated at the bottom of the factor
map, is in fact organized secondarily by the generation principle of preference
stratification described by the second factor. While attraction to classical
music and opera can be interpreted graphically as highbrow upper-class taste
cultivated by the older generations, attraction to jazz occupies a more central
position for the second factor, which establishes it as an attribute of cultural
legitimacy for more recent generations.
The case of rock is particularly interesting in this connection. Whereas
attraction to classical music, opera, and jazz is sharply constitutive of the

second factor, attraction to rock music contributes little to this factor.
However, in a reading of the factor map, a taste for rock is decidedly closer to
the highbrow-genres pole than rap, international pop, etc., genres much more
closely associated with current youth culture, though a taste for rock does
share with these genres a proximity to the salaried working classes (manual
workers and clerical). This position recalls the folk/pop/fine arts schema
evoked by Peterson (1972), (9) and suggests that rock could be at the threshold
of a cultural ennoblement movement comparable to what began happening to
jazz in the late 1970s (Leonard, 1962). (10)
(8) Though music probably lends itself the 1920s and 30s by the mass culture indus-
more readily to use differentiation than the tries (pop phase), before gradually being
other arts given the diversity of means by rehabilitated and integrated after World War II
which it is diffused, certain analyses of taste into the world of highbrow music (fine arts
expression in the plastic arts mention the same phase). According to Peterson, this has been a
type of differentiation. See, among others, general, long-term process.
David Halle (1992) on the primacy of (10) It is interesting in this connection to
“decorative” motifs among abstract art lovers. relate the rock cultures’ role in elitizing
(9) African-American music, whose major counter-culture movements in the 1990s to
function initially was to affirm community jazz’s role in the 1960s. Since the late 1990s
identity (folk phase), was gradually taken up in Les Inrockuptibles [French rock magazine; title
134
Philippe Coulangeon
This interpretation of the first four MCA factors decidedly points to eclec-
ticism as an additional dimension in the social stratification of taste, rather
than a cultural attitude in itself that could be independent of music genres
preferred –a conclusion very similar to Van Eijck’s in a study of data from a
1987 Dutch survey on participation in cultural activities: differences among
social groups are only significant if combinations of musical genres are taken
into account rather than overall preference eclecticism (Van Eijck, 2001). It is
by simultaneously taking into account this dimension, along with generation
and cultural legitimacy effects, that we can construct a typology of attitudes
toward recorded music.
Typology of attitudes toward recorded music
Using Ward’s algorithm method, I have determined a classification in

ascending hierarchical order (CAH) on the basis of the first four MCA factors
from the preceding section. Five attitudes have been described, characterized
on the one hand by music genres cited and degree of declared preference
eclecticism, on the other by the socio-demographic variables introduced as
supplementary variables in the MCA analysis. (11)
Five preference profiles
The first profile, accounting for 20% of the sample, is organized around the
three genres of highbrow music in the broad sense, i.e., including jazz. The
first refers to the image of enlightened eclecticism, encountered primarily

among members of the upper classes, persons over 40, persons of high educa-
tional attainment, and persons with high income.
Considering the music genres most closely associated with it, the second
profile is situated at the opposite pole from highbrow music and is character-
ized by diversity of functional uses (background or mood, dance, folk, film)
and light opera. This profile is more difficult to interpret than the first in
terms of income, socio-occupational status, and educational level. However,
in terms of age it is characterized by sharp relevance for the over-60 group
and represents a relatively low proportion of the sample population (13%).
The third profile is sharply distinguished from the previous two in terms of
age. Here the under-25 dominate, and examination of the music genres it
comprises (rap, rock, hard rock, world music, international pop) confirms the
generational dimension, though the profile is hard to characterize in terms of
plays on the word incorruptible, translation of cultural press which is fairly comparable to
the English “untouchable” as in the title of the Jazz Magazine’s at the end of the 1960s.
cult police-detective TV series set during (11) Appendix A provides a detailed
Prohibition] has occupied a position in the characterization of the different attitude groups.
135
socio-occupational status. This “young” and “counter-cultural” eclecticism

represents a much smaller segment of the sample (8%).
The fourth profile, which accounts for 45% of sample individuals and is by
far the most representative, is marked by strong preference specialization (one
genre cited) and attraction to pop music. It is also sharply characteristic of the
working-class esthetic world (manual workers and clerical), in contrast to the
three preceding ones. It is more difficult to characterize, however, in terms of
cultural capital (the test value associated with “lower than the baccalauréat
[high school leaving exam]” is in fact too weak to be clearly interpreted as a
full-fledged characteristic of this group). However, it is important to consider
the nomenclature effect engendered by the fact that the generic headings “pop
music” and “international pop” cover a wide range of musical styles, periods,
and genres; the esthetic unity of popular categories produced by this classifi-
cation is in part artificial and would very likely be muted if the aforemen-
tioned diversity were taken into account in the list of genres proposed by the
questionnaire.
The fifth and last profile is defined negatively by absence of any genre; it
represents a remarkable 15% of the sample, and upon examination appears
less characterized by socio-occupational status and educational capital vari-
ables than preponderance of persons over 60, suggesting that these persons
belong to generations for whom recorded music had not yet become an ordi-
nary part of life.
The distinctive properties of enlightened eclecticism


Socio-demographic characterization of each of these five groups of indi-
viduals clearly underscores the persistence of social, cultural, and genera-
tional phenomena in stratification of tastes; degree of eclecticism is only one
such dimension. None of the profiles associated with the five groups corre-
sponds to “uncontrolled” eclecticism. Though one attitude profile associated
with these groups is “total” rejection of all genres of musical expression
(group V), no profile corresponds to a citing of all music genres.
Highly illuminating in this respect is the list of genres cited within the first
group, associated with high educational and income levels as well as member-
ship in the managers category. The association of jazz with highbrow music,
together with rejection of international pop or background music (non-citation
of these genres goes together with high test values), suggest that taste eclecti-
cism cannot be exercised undifferentiatedly and still preserve its distinctive
properties. For music, only “enlightened” eclecticism qualifies as a particular
mode of esthetic refinement, whereas indistinct eclecticism constitutes the
most radical disqualification with regard to competence and “good taste”
(Menger, 1986). Symmetrically, the list of non-cited genres within group IV,
associated with high test values, suggests that popular taste may be defined as
much by rejection of or unfamiliarity with learned or highbrow styles –clas-
sical music, jazz, opera– as it is by attraction to songs and pop music.
136
Philippe Coulangeon
These two profiles are defined more than the others not only by genres
cited but by genres not cited. The omnivore/univore hypothesis therefore does
not seem to invalidate “by default” definition of esthetic orientations (Bryson,
1996), a kind of definition also central to the theoretical schema of distinc-
tion: a group’s taste is also its distaste for the tastes of other groups
(Bourdieu, 1979). (12) Secondly, these two profiles are more sharply character-
ized than the other three in terms of members’ occupational status, as indi-
cated by distribution of socio-occupational categories among groups
(Table III). Group IV is the most frequent situation for all categories with the
exception of managers, more than half of whom are in group I, and with the
less marked exception of retirees, most likely to be found in group V. Clerical
and manual workers are the only categories more than half present in
group IV (≥ 60%). Above and beyond eclecticism of stated tastes, preferring
highbrow music broadly defined therefore seems an upper-class attribute, just
as preferring pop music seems strongly to characterize the esthetic orientation
of lower-status classes.
TABLE III. – Distribution of groups by occupational status (%)
Group I Group II Group III Group IV Group V All

Farmers 10 16 4 47 23 100
Tradespeople, Shopkeepers 20 10 12 45 13 100
and Business Owners
Managers 54 9 10 25 2 100
Mid-level occupations 27 12 11 48 3 100

Clerical 15 10 9 60 7 100
Manual workers 8 10 11 62 9 100
Students 12 6 34 45 3 100
Retirees 25 20 1 23 32 100
Other unoccupied 15 12 6 49 18 100
All 20 13 8 44 14 100
χ = 1,101
2
df = 32
p <.0001
Source : Enquête sur les pratiques culturelles des Français, 1997, Ministère de la Culture, DEP
(12) Analyzing judgments expressed in rejection of those music genres most closely
response to a question on the 1993 General associated with the esthetic world of the most
Social Survey regarding a list of 18 music culturally impoverished fractions of the lower
genres covering all styles available on the classes; heavy metal is the emblematic illus-
music market, Bryson shows that elite esthetic tration.
tolerance goes together with pronounced
137
However, it is difficult to specify the effect of occupational status, which

indirectly represents credential and income levels but also to some degree
social origin. The correlation observed between “highbrow” or “enlightened”
eclecticism and membership in the upper classes can be interpreted as an
effect of scholastic capital or a consequence of social origin, variables with
which occupational status is itself strongly correlated. More generally, the
typology constructed by factor classification does not allow us to distinguish
clearly between the effects of the different variables introduced into the anal-
ysis, either for these two profiles or the three others. It is worthwhile, there-
fore to do an “all else kept equal” analysis.
Social factors of preference orientation
This last section presents the results of estimating a multinomial logit

model where the dependent variable is defined by membership in one of the
five profiles determined by the factor classification. (13) The method is
designed to measure the effects on musical preference orientation specific to
the characteristics introduced as supplementary variables in the MCA factor
analysis. Sex, educational attainment, and income have been introduced into
the model in the form of dichotomous variables: male vs. female, no bac vs.
bac and/or higher education degree; monthly income below 10,000 francs
[roughly 1,500€] vs. monthly income above 1,500€.
There are nine socio-occupational positions, i.e., eight categories of occu-
pied persons (farmers; tradespeople, shopkeepers and business owners;
managers and upper intellectual professions; mid-level occupations; clerical;

manual workers) and three varieties of unoccupied persons (students, (14)
retirees, and other unoccupied). Age is a continuous variable.
In addition to the factor analysis variables, a social origin variable was
introduced distinguishing between lower-status class and upper-status class
origins (upper: father manager or head of business), as well as a musical
competence indicator with three positions: no musical training, trained in
(13) The multinomial logit model extends bility of each of the j positions of the dependent
logistic regression to include dependent variable y is contrasted to a reference position
variables that encompass more than two attributed the value of 1. This may be written
non-ordered positions. In the dichotomous logit  Pr( y = j )  J K
model, probability of a dependent variable y as
Log   = ∑ ∑ b jk x k
 Pr( y = 1)  j = 1 k = 0
a function of k independent variables x is
where bjk coefficients designate the parameters
written thus:
 Pr( y = 1 )   Pr( y = 1 )  K estimated by the model. As indicated by the
Log
1 − Pr( = 1 )  = Log Pr( y = 0 ) = ∑ b k x k indexation, and in contrast to the dichotomous
 y    k =0 model, these parameters vary by position of the
where bk coefficients designate the parameters dependent variable y. For a detailed presen-
associated with each variable as estimated by tation, see Powers and Xie (2000, pp. 223-252).
the model, with x0 = 1 and b0x0 = constant. (14) As indicated, high school students
In the multinomial logit model, the proba- were excluded from the sample.
138
Philippe Coulangeon
music (music school, conservatory, private lessons, etc.), and self-trained in

music (individuals who learned music alone or with friends).
The reference situation on the independent variable side is made up of the
positions “woman,” “no bac,” “clerical,” “income<1,500€”, “lower-status
origin,” “no musical training.” For the dependent variable, the reference situa-
tion is defined as group IV, the largest numerical sub-population of the
sample (45%); it corresponds to a pop music-centered preference orienta-
tion. (15) Estimation of the model therefore leads to specifying the most
common factors that distance an individual from the most common musical
taste orientation as described by the reference position profile. (16)
Primacy of age and cultural capital
To hierarchically arrange the independent variable effects introduced into

the model, we first compare quality of fit for a series of nesting models
obtained by removing one variable after another from the complete model
with full set of variables. (17) The hierarchical arrangement of the variables
resulting from comparison of the controlled models with the complete one
forefront the effect of age in distribution of preferences in recorded music as
determined from the cultural practices survey data. Indeed, it is when the age
variable is removed that we encounter the greatest decrease in degree of
freedom of model-to-data goodness of fit. The generational component of
social stratification of tastes, already pointed up by factor analysis, is thus
validated by “all else kept equal” analysis, which also underscores the
primacy of the age variable effect for the effect of the other socio-demo-
graphic variables, i.e., the ones generally emphasized in sociology of tastes

literature.
Second, removing educational attainment and, to a lesser degree, income,
induces a greater decrease in goodness of fit than the one resulting from
removal of the social origin variable. The order of variables suggested by
testing how well each model fits with the data thus weakens the habitus
theory. Distribution of taste appears significantly linked to social origin, but
effect of individual’s cultural resources, and secondarily, economic ones
seems to prevail over the effect of primary socialization. Preference orienta-
tion seems in this sense first and foremost a constructed attitude rather than
any direct reflection of a passively assimilated heritage.
Lastly, the order of parameters deduced from goodness of fit tests shows
that of all the variables, occupational status is the one whose omission least
(15) Independent variable positions are not Pj

Log = bj0 + bj1SEX + bj2AGE +
ordered, so choice of reference position is of P1
course arbitrary.
bj3EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT +
(16) Probability of belonging to each of the
bj4OCCUPATIONAL STATUS + bj6INCOME +
four active dependent-variable positions is
bj7ORIGIN + bj8MUSICAL COMPETENCE
written thus:
(17) Procedure described in Appendix B.
139
affects model-to-data fit quality. By this criterion, individual’s occupational

status seems to have less effect on preference orientation than musical compe-
tence. The effect of that variable, which distinguishes individuals who have
had no musical training, i.e., never played an instrument, sung in a choir, or
received any specific instruction in this area, from individuals who at some
moment in their lives have received specialized musical education (music
school, conservatory, private lessons) or learned to play an instrument in the
family or with friends, enables us to interpret observed preference distribution
in a way that loosens the hold of the heteronomous conception of preference
stratification that has generally prevailed in sociology of artistic tastes
(Bourdieu, 1979; Di Maggio, 1987).
Generation, age, and musical preference orientation
The importance of the overall effect of age brought to light by the fit test
needs to be specified. To this end, we now look successively at two models.
The first corresponds to the saturated fit test model; the second adds two
interaction terms to that model: ageXeducational attainment and
ageXoccupational status (Tables IVa and IVb). The first suggests that the
overall effect of age does not operate univocally. Advancement in the life
cycle produces distance from the reference situation, manifested alternatively
by attraction to highbrow music genres (Group I) and attraction to more clas-
sically functional uses of music (Group II) and even complete withdrawal
from the world of music consumption (Group V). Inversely, the minus sign
for the parameter associated with age effect for Group III suggests that the
“counter-cultural” eclecticism attaching to this profile is itself an attribute of

youth, because the probability of belonging to this group decreases with age
(Table IVa).
Adding interaction terms in the second model makes it possible to specify
the effect of educational attainment and occupational status in a way that
sheds light on the relevance of the omnivore/univore model for analysis of
distribution of music preferences (Table IVb). The parameters estimated by
this second model suggest generational differentiation of the effects of
cultural legitimacy, a result which underscores the historical contingency of
the two theoretical models here discussed.
140
TABLE IVa. – Estimation of multinomial logit model parameters – probability of belonging to Groups I, II, III, and V (model without interaction effects)
Reference position Active position

Group IV Group V Group III Group II Group I
Coefficient p Marginal Coefficient p Marginal Coefficient p Marginal Coefficient p Marginal
effect effect effect effect
Constant -1.535 17.7% -2.774 +5.9% -1.510 18.1% -1.663 15.9%

Sex M 0.181 n.s. 0.502 <.001 +3.5% -0.032 n.s. -0.179 n.s.
F
Age 0.093 <.001 +1.4% -0.034 <.001 -0.2% 0.053 <.001 0.8% 0.053 <.001 +0.7%
Educational ⱖ bac -0.032 n.s. 0.060 n.s. -0.058 n.s. 0.790 <.001 +13.5%
attainment
< bac
Socio-occupational farmer 0.541 n.s. -0.628 n.s. 0.374 n.s. -0.235 n.s.
category
clerical tradesperson, shopkeeper, 0.364 n.s. 0.418 n.s. 0.044 n.s. 0.188 n.s.
business owner
manager -0.386 n.s. 0.665 <.05 +5.0% 0.470 n.s. 1.150 <.001 +21.5%
mid-level occupation -0.733 <.05 -8.3% 0.274 n.s. 0.243 n.s. 0.194 n.s.
manual worker 0.204 n.s. -0.066 n.s. 0.037 n.s. -0.406 n.s.
student 0.978 n.s. 0.792 <.01 +6.2% 0.536 n.s. -0.136 n.s.
retiree -0.195 n.s. -0.735 n.s. 0.104 n.s. 0.090 n.s.
other unoccupied 0.233 n.s. -0.107 n.s. 0.090 n.s. 0.003 n.s.
Income > 1,500 € -0.518 <.001 -6.4% 0.057 n.s. 0.205 <.1 +3.2% 0.609 <.001 +9.9%
Philippe Coulangeon
< 1,500 € nsp 0.056 n.s. 0.459 <.02 +3.1% 0.253 n.s. 0.395 <.01 +6.0%
Social origin upper class 0.080 n.s. 0.295 <.05 +1.9% -0.113 n.s. 0.573 <.001 +9.2%
lower-status
Musical competence trained in music -0.120 n.s. 0.401 n.s. 0.421 <.05 +7.1% 0.669 <.001 +11.1%
no training self-trained -0.113 n.s. 0.630 <.001 +4.6% 0.302 n.s. 0.573 <.001 +9.2%
- 2 Log L :
141
Model with constant only: 11,651

Model with independent variables: 9,757 (df :64)
P<0.001
Reading: For each of the groups in the active position for the dependent variable, the constant represents frequency of the group for the reference situation. Values in the “marginal effect” co-
lumn indicate estimated variation of frequency of the given group by the various model parameters. For example, holding a bac or higher education degree increases probability of belonging
to Group I rather than Group IV by 13.5%. Likewise, being a year older increases probability of belonging to Group I by 0.7%. Only effects where p 0.05 are detailed.
142

TABLE IVb. – Estimation of multinomial logit model parameters – probability of belonging to Groups I, II, III, and V (model with interaction effects)

Group IV Group V Group III Group II Group I

Reference position Active position Coefficient p Marginal Coefficient p Marginal Coefficient p Marginal Coefficient p Marginal
effect effect effect effect
Constant -1.459 18.9% -2.614 6.8% -1.423 19.4% -1.443 19.1%
Sex M 0.183 n.s. 0.485 <.001 +3.8% -0.066 n.s. -0.224 <.05 -3.2%
F
Age (*) 0.100 <.001 +1.6% -0.025 n.s. 0.065 <.001 +1.0% 0.072 <.001 +1.1%
Educational attainment ⱖ bac 0.167 n.s. 0.353 n.s. 0.116 n.s. 0.883 <.001 +17.3%
< bac
AgeXeducational bac 0.005 n.s. 0.023 n.s. 0.000 n.s. 0.027 <.01 +0.4%
attainment
< bac
Socio-occupational farmer 0.466 n.s. -1.676 n.s. 0.279 n.s. -0.452 n.s.
category
clerical tradesperson, shopkeeper, 0.333 n.s. 0.473 n.s. -0.126 n.s. -0.013 n.s.
business owner
manager -0.552 n.s. 0.729 n.s. 0.400 n.s. 1.031 <.001 +20.7%
mid-level occupation -0.880 <.05 -10.1% 0.318 n.s. 0.260 n.s. 0.194 n.s.
manual worker 0.027 n.s. -0.729 n.s. 0.053 n.s. -0.378 n.s.
student -3.578 n.s. 0.479 n.s. 2.584 n.s. 0.784 n.s. ,
retiree -0.174 n.s. 0.008 n.s. 0.825 <.05 +16.1% 0.729 <.05 +13.8%
other unoccupied 0.060 n.s. -0.360 n.s. -0.028 n.s. -0.205 n.s.
TABLE IVb. (suite)
AgeXsocio-occupa- farmer 0.041 n.s. -0.085 n.s. 0.050 n.s. 0.050 n.s.
tional category.
clerical tradesperson, shopkeeper, -0.033 n.s. 0.015 n.s. -0.045 n.s. -0.018 n.s.
business owner

manager 0.045 n.s. 0.018 n.s. 0.054 n.s. -0.028 n.s.
mid-level occupation -0.046 n.s. 0.008 n.s. 0.015 n.s. -0.006 n.s.
manual worker -0.037 n.s. -0.044 <.05 -0.3% 0.004 n.s. 0.014 n.s.
student -0.190 n.s. -0.027 n.s. 0.089 n.s. 0.006 n.s.
retiree -0.015 n.s. -0.060 n.s. -0.049 <.01 -0.8% -0.061 <.01 -0.9%
other unoccupied -0.011 n.s. -0.020 n.s. -0.025 n.s. -0.042 <.01 -0.6%
Income > 1,500 € -0.526 <.001 -6.8% 0.018 n.s. 0.184 n.s. 0.561 <.001 +10.2%
< 1,500 € nsp 0.045 n.s. 0.443 <.02 +3.4% 0.247 n.s. 0.403 <.01 +7.0%
Social origin upper class 0.069 n.s. 0.293 n.s. -0.081 n.s. 0.587 <.001 +10.7%
lower-status
Musical competence trained in music -0.169 n.s. 0.434 <.05 +3.3% 0.455 <.05 +8.1% 0.740 <.001 +14.0%
no training self-trained -0.140 n.s. 0.635 <.001 +5.3% 0.306 n.s. 0.594 <.001 +10.8%
- 2 Log L :
Model without interactions: 9,757 (df: 64)
Model with interactions: 9,664 (df: 100)
diff. df: 36
P<0.001
Philippe Coulangeon
* Age used was centered beforehand to express overall effect regardless of presence of an interaction term.
143
Attenuation of the effect of cultural capital in generations affected by the

massification of education
Educational attainment has a strong separating effect for attraction to high-

brow music (Group I) and this effect, which appears in the model without the
interaction term ageXeducational attainment (Table IVa), persists even with
the introduction of this term in the next model (Table IVb). The probability of
belonging to this group of individuals goes from 19 to nearly 40% for bac and
higher education degree holders all else kept equal. It remains a delicate
matter to interpret effect of educational attainment. Highbrow music does not
belong to the school world in the same way as literature does, so it is difficult
to conceive the role that schooling could have in the matter, especially since
school is also the locus of other forms of sociability that in the area of music
are the main vectors for diffusion of juvenile fashions and counter-culture
movements. We may of course think here of the “status assigning” mecha-
nism described by Bourdieu in La Distinction, by which the minority of pupils
of lower-status background are traditionally encouraged to adopt the cultural
norms of the milieu to which scholastic success has given them access (the
“heirs”’ milieu), with the idea that this mechanism also, paradoxically, oper-
ates most visibly in the areas furthest removed from the school world properly
speaking (Bourdieu, 1979). In other words, the apparent effect of cultural
capital may mask the influence of school socialization and peer group
morphology.
In this connection, the interaction term ageXeducational attainment intro-
duced into the model presented in Table IVb suggests that effect of educa-
tional attainment changes over time. The significance of the parameter
associated with this interaction term for Group I indicates that the positive

influence of the variable becomes stronger with age, which also means,
conversely, that the specific effect of cultural capital on “highbrow” musical
preference orientation is attenuated for members of the young generations,
without there being reason to incriminate any kind of decline in the function
of the scholastic institution since in this area it has always been largely defi-
cient. It is likely, however, that mass education, by breaking with the social
and cultural homogeneity of secondary school enrolment, contributed to the
gradual weakening of the status assignation mechanism cited by Bourdieu,
though the effect of educational attainment cannot be reduced to this because
with age controlled for, it subsists above and beyond transformation of the
public school social structure.
Emergence of the omnivore figure within the upper classes: a matter of

generation
The parameters estimated by the model presented in Table IVa confirm

that taste for highbrow music is indeed an attribute of the upper classes,
whether we use the cultural capital scale (educational attainment), the social
capital scale (social origin and occupational status), or the economic capital
144
Philippe Coulangeon
scale (income level). In this connection, income affects probability of

belonging to Group I in the opposite way from its effect on probability of
belonging to Group V; absence of consumption clearly appears an attribute of
lower-income individuals. This properly economic dimension in behavior
differentiation, which is not always given much place in sociology of cultural
practices, recalls that preferences apprehended by means of cultural
statistiques for either listening to recorded music, as here, or concert atten-
dance, involve consumption of goods and services, and that these in turn are
strongly influenced by income elasticity. It also suggests that the economic
constraint does not have the same strength by genre of musical predilection;
this can be linked to differentiation in diffusion mode among the various
musical styles. From this perspective, highbrow taste is surely more strongly
linked to CD purchasing than taste for light and all current genres of music,
for which radio is the main vector.
Estimating the parameters of the logistic model allows for distinguishing
among the effects of these different genres of capital, and suggests that their
influences may compound each other. Furthermore, introducing the interac-
tion terms ageXeducational attainment and ageXoccupational status does not
neutralize any of the effects brought to light by the previous model when it
comes to belonging to Group I (Table IVb). Occupational status in particular,
which as seen has fairly little influence in itself on musical preference orienta-
tion, remains a preponderant parameter for preference profile associated with
Group I since the probability of belonging to this group is doubled for
managers (Table IVb). In other words, cultural legitimacy boundaries evolve
over the generations, as suggested by the list of music genres characteristic of
Group I (classical music, opera, jazz), but the legitimist orientation of musical
taste among members of the upper classes remains.

The model presented in Table IVa nonetheless also suggests the existence
within the upper classes of another profile, much less consistent with that of
cultural legitimacy. The fact of belonging to the category of managers and
intellectual professions substantially increases probability of belonging to
Group III, whose characteristics regarding stated tastes in music are situated
sharply outside the sphere of highbrow music, and this probability also
increases with social origin. The upper classes may therefore be characterized
alternatively by a penchant for cultural legitimacy and a penchant for esthetic
tolerance and counter-culture movements (Inglehart, 1990), and this finding is
consistent with the omnivore figure theorized by Peterson. The penchant for
esthetic tolerance can be related to diversity of social milieus with which
members of the upper classes come in contact, namely through their occupa-
tional activities (Peterson, 1992; Bryson, 1996). The nature of the effect of
occupational status thus limits the power of the habitus model. Preference
orientation is not only correlated with cultural capital and social origin, it is
also partially constructed in adulthood and reflects among other things the
characteristics of individuals’ social and occupational environments. In
contrast to the profile associated with Group I, however, these effects are
neutralized by introducing the ageXoccupational status interaction term into
145
the second model (Table IVb). In other words, there is every indication that
the preference profile associated with this group involves first and foremost a
generational component. Secondarily, it can be observed that there is a prefer-
ence orientation opposition between the male component of the profile associ-
ated with Group III and the female component of the profile associated with
Group I (Table IVb).
Specific effect of musical competence
Lastly, estimating music preference orientation parameters brings out the

influence of musical competence and ways of acquiring it. The robustness of
this effect, which resists controlling for the set of socio-demographic vari-
ables introduced into the model in Table IVb, makes it impossible to think of
musical competence acquisition as an avatar of social origin. Though the
opportunity of acceding to this competence, one not part of compulsory
education, is highly unevenly distributed among social groups, it nonetheless
exercises its own effect, which, in contrast to cultural capital, is not mani-
fested exclusively by attraction to highbrow music genres, as this competence
also significantly increases the probability of belonging to Groups II and III.
For Group II, musical competence has an effect in the absence of any signifi-
cant effect other than age. Attraction to the music genres characteristic of this
profile, removed from both the highbrow culture pole and the mass culture
industry pole, may be related in this perspective with the subsistence of
non-academic forms of musical acculturation (percussion, street, and
dance-hall bands) which played an essential role in the past in culturally and
musically instructing lower-status classes (Gumplowicz, 1987). For Group III,

this variable has an effect in the absence of any significant effect of cultural
capital, social origin, or socio-occupational status. Self-teaching is ahead of
academic instruction, as is shown by the comparison of marginal effects asso-
ciated with these two modes of acquiring musical competence (Table IVb),
and this tends to reinforce the counter-culture dimension of this profile, as is
usually forefronted by literature on how rock musicians learned music
(Bennett, 1980; Mignon and Hennion, 1991). More generally, the influence of
playing music in the present or past is to be related to the overall influence on
cultural habits orientation of being exposed to art through practice, particu-
larly in childhood (Abbé-Decarroux, 1993).
*
**
Three remarks in conclusion. First, apprehending musical preference orien-

tation by means of a music genres nomenclature does not allow for fine
segmentation of the symbolic worlds of the different social groups. While
managers are sharply distinguished from all other categories by preference
diversity and greater familiarity with highbrow music, apprehending stratifi-
cation of preferences for all other groups with a nomenclature of this sort
146
Philippe Coulangeon
leads to observing a fairly strong homogeneity between the middle and

lower-status classes, whose musical environment seems dominated by the
generic category of pop music “songs” and “international pop”. This finding
contrasts with the very high degree of segmentation of lower-status class
tastes characteristic of other western societies, particularly North American
ones (Peterson and Simkus, 1992; Peterson and Kern, 1996; Bryson, 1996). In
the French case, such “unity” may be interpreted as the product of a nomen-
clature effect, and may be expected not to resist adoption of finer type defini-
tions. Alternatively, we can say that ethnic and community factors, the main
factors of cultural segmentation among American lower-status classes, have
no equivalent in French society, where the main factor of preference segmen-
tation remains a generational one. The conclusions reached here, however,
implicitly underscore the limitations of an approach in terms of diversity in
music reception modes, confined to segmentation by music genres, and call
instead for empirical verification based on the variety of ways people appro-
priate music (Hennion, Maisonneuve, and Gomart, 2000). More generally,
when sociology of cultural practices is based on quantitative survey data, it
proceeds using indicators that do not really allow for distinguishing consump-
tion from reception (Passeron, 1991), whereas in fact the play of social differ-
entiation in cultural practices is as much involved with ways of “consuming”
objects and aims pursued in doing so as it is with the “consumed” objects
themselves.
Second, while Peterson’s hypothesis is confirmed for the French data, it
does not constitute an alternative, strictly speaking, to the cultural legitimacy
and distinction model but rather adds an extra dimension to it. The symbolic
boundaries that music preferences trace among social groups are becoming
more complex without really growing fainter. The perimeter of highbrow

music is being redesigned rather than diluted in the mass culture industry.
Overall, upper class “highbrow culture” tends to be sharply distinguished
from “average taste,” characterized by listening exclusively to pop music, and
many more individual members of the upper classes adhere to a type of
enlightened eclecticism that combines a taste for classical music and opera
with an attraction to music genres situated at the periphery of the highbrow
music domain –jazz in particular. On the whole, such enlightened eclecticism
brings to bear the same social and cultural resources as those described in La
Distinction. With respect to the 1997 cultural practices survey data for French
tastes in music, it is therefore impossible to conclude that the cultural legiti-
macy model represents a period that is over and done with. The necessary
reevaluation of Bourdieu’s theoretical model for sociology of tastes in fact
pertains to another level, and this is the third remark elicited by examination
of the social factors of differentiation of musical preferences in the survey of
French people’s cultural practices.
While analysis of the French data confirms the robustness of the link
between social characteristics and individuals’ musical preference orienta-
tions, this appears much less substantive than the habitus theory suggests.
Expression of musical tastes, which also seems specifically linked to actors’
147
degree of musical competence, cannot in fact be reduced to either a communi-

cation resource or a resource for symbolically marking social identity, nor to
the effect of a generative scheme that can be transposed from one order of
practices to another. In this sense, analysis of musical preference differentia-
tion factors underscores the importance of the explicit transmission of compe-
tence operative in taste formation. What is at issue in the social differentiation
of tastes is thus not only games of symbolic domination or opportunities for
acceding to cultural knowledge but more simply the uneven distribution of
generic competence (scholastic capital) and specifically focused competence
(the musical variety in this case). The importance of the role of learning, all
forms of learning, is only more strongly confirmed by this finding, and this in
turn indicates the space available to cultural and educational policies.
Philippe COULANGEON
Observatoire Sociologique de Changement
Sciences Po – CNRS
54, boulevard Raspail – 75006 Paris – France
Translation: Amy Jacobs
Previously published: RFS, 2003, 44, 1

148
APPENDIX A. – Characterization of the five groups
Group I Group II Group III Group IV GroupV

Test Test Test Test Test
value value value value value
Active variables
Genres cited classical 41.7 background 34.3 rap 21.2 songs 23.8
music
jazz 18.5 folk music 26.8 world music 19.1 international 14.1

pop music
opera 16.9 film 13.2 rock 17.6
light opera 7.8 light opera 10.9 hard-rock 14.6
international 12.0
pop music
jazz 10.6
film 7.8
Number of genres cited Two 14.7 > Two 11.7 > Two 27.6 One 34.6 None 55.3
> Two 2.6 Two 5.1
Genres not cited international pop 11.0 international pop 6.5 light opera 3.3 classical 31.8 songs 28.7
background 9.8 rock 6.1 background 2.8 jazz 18.9 international 16.6
music pop
songs 7.1 world music 5.8 background 18.9 classical 16.0
music
rap 5.8 jazz 4.9 folk music 15.3 world music 11.5
world music 5.1 hard-rock 4.7 opera 13.3 rock 11.4
rock 5.0 rap 4.3 film 12.8 jazz 9.5
hard-rock 4.9 light opera 12.7 background 9.5
Philippe Coulangeon
music
film 2.7 rap 9.8 folk music 7.6
hard-rock 7.9 opera 6.6
film 6.3
light opera 6.3
rap 4.7
149
others 3.8
150

contemporary 3.4
classical
children’s music 3.0
military music 2.8
illustrative variables

Occupational status Managers 12.8 Retirees 7.1 Students 9.3 Manual 10.0 Retirees 17,0
workers
Retirees 4.0 Manual 3.0 Clerical 8.7 Other 2.4
workers unoccupied
Mid-level occup 3.5 Mid-level 2.3
occup
Income >=4,500 € 8.7 1,500 to 2,000 € 4.6 < 1,000 € 10.0
3,000 to 4,500 € 8.1 1,250 to 1,500 € 2.7 1,000 to 1,250 € 3.0
2,000 to 3,000 € 3.6 Nd. 3.2
Educational attaintment bac 12.3 < bac 4.9 bac 6.1 < bac 3.2 < bac 11.5
Age 40-60 7.0 < 60 5.9 20-25 8.5 25-40 15.7 > 60 ans 22.7
> 60 3.0 40-60 5.6 < 20 7.6 20-25 7.2
25-40 5.5
Sex M 5.2
N= 819 518 333 1813 591
% 20 % 13 % 8% 45 % 15 %
Note: Test values are values which, when estimated, indicate to what degree a given group is characterized by a given variable. They express degree to which the average or observed fre-
quency of a variable within a given group may be attributed to chance. In this case, test value measures the gap between a variable’s relative frequency for a given group and its relative ove-
rall frequency calculated for the entire set of individuals. Variables for which the absolute value of test values is over 2 (meaning the gap between the two frequencies is significant at the
usual 5% level) are termed significant for characterization of that group. The higher the absolute value of the test value, the more representative of the group’s salient traits is the variable as-
sociated with it. Test values above 10 are in bold in the table. On the notion of test value see Alain Morineau, “Note sur la caractérisation statistique d’une classe et les valeurs-tests,” in Bulle-
tin technique du Centre de statistique et d’informatique appliquées 2, 1-2 (1984, pp. 20-27).
Philippe Coulangeon
APPENDIX B. – Goodness of fit test and hierarchy of variables introduced into

the Logit model
Table a tests degradation of goodness of fit following one-by-one removal

of each of the seven variables which together constitute the complete model.
Measurement is calculated on the basis of the log-likelihood associated with
each model (–2 Log L, here noted L’), as noted in the second column in
Table b. The difference between L’ and L, L measuring the log-likelihood of
the complete model, is noted in the fifth column of this table. This difference
is distributed by an χ2 law, where the number of degrees of freedom, equal to
the difference between numbers of degrees of freedom for complete and
constrained models (df-df’), represents reduction to the number of parameters
estimated for each model compared to the complete model. The test results
given in the seventh column indicate significance of degradation associated
with removing each variable. The last move, results of which are noted in the
last column, is to relate the L’-L difference to the df-df’ difference; this ratio
measures degree of freedom of degradation in model-to-data goodness of fit
upon removal of each variable. Comparing the values in the last column of the
table thus makes it possible to hierarchically arrange variables in terms of
how much each contributes to goodness of fit. The higher the related value,
the greater the influence.
TABLE a. – Description of the models
PJ
Model 0: Log = bj0 + bj1 SEX + bj2 AGE + bj3 EDU.ATTAINMENT + bj4 SOCIO-OCCUP + bj5 INCOME
P1
+ bj6 ORIGIN + bj7 MUSICALCOMP.
PJ

Model 1 (without SEX): Log = bj0 + bj2 AGE + bj3 EDU.ATTAINMENT + bj4 SOCIO-OCCUP + bj5 INCOME
P1
PJ
Model 2 (without AGE): Log = bj0 + bj1 SEX + bj3 EDU.ATTAINMENT + bj4 SOCIO-OCCUP + bj5 INCOME
P1
Model 3 (without EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT):
P
Log J = bj0 + bj1 SEX + bj2 AGE + bj4 SOCIO-OCCUP + bj5 INCOME + bj6 ORIGIN + bj7 MUSICALCOMP.
P1
PJ
Model 4 (without SOCIO-OCCUP): Log = bj0 + bj1 SEX + bj2 AGE + bj3 EDU.ATTAINMENT + bj5 INCOME
P1
PJ
Model 5 (without INCOME): Log = bj0 + bj1 SEX + bj2 AGE + bj3 EDU.ATTAINMENT + bj4 SOCIO-OCCUP
P1
PJ
Model 6 (without ORIGIN): Log = bj0 + bj1 SEX + bj2 AGE + bj3 EDU.ATTAINMENT + bj4 SOCIO-OCCUP
P1
+ bj5 INCOME + bj7 MUSICALCOMP.
PJ
Model 7 (without MUSICAL COMP. – musical competence): Log = bj0 + bj1 SEX + bj2 AGE + bj3 EDU.ATTAINMENT
P1
+ bj4 SOCIO-OCCUP + bj5 INCOME + bj6 ORIGIN.
151
TABLE b. – Model fit test
L L’ df df’ L’-L df-df’ p (L’-L)/(df-df’)

Complete model 9,757 64
complet
Model 1 9,780 60 23 4 <.0001 5.8
Model 2 10,251 60 495 4 <.0001 123.7
Model 3 9,807 60 51 4 <.0001 12.7
Model 4 9,866 32 109 32 <.0001 3.4
Model 5 9,831 56 74 8 <.0001 9.3
Model 6 9,793 60 36 4 <.0001 9.1
Model 7 9,806 56 49 8 <.0001 6.1
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Social Stratification of Musical Tastes : Questioning the

Cultural Legitimacy Model

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Social Stratification of Musical Tastes:

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Stated music preferences continue to be particularly strong indicators of

Testing the cultural legitimacy theory against the

The strength of ties between esthetic preference orientation and social

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Habitus and distinction

Bourdieu’s sociology of tastes implies two fundamental concepts: habitus

involve largely implicit, unconscious processes (Bourdieu, 1979, pp. 70-87).

The “omnivore/univore” hypothesis: blurring the boundary between

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Eclecticism and legitimacy

Two arguments may be made against the “postmodern” interpretation of

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the perimeter of highbrow art, thereby manifesting a capacity to culturally

Distribution of music preferences in the survey

In this section I use 1997 responses to a question in the Ministry of

The dimensions of social stratification of preferences: eclecticism, generation,

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(3) “The asymmetry of symbolic exchange structure, see Donnat (1997).

Distribution of preferences in music

The music genres nomenclature used from here on corresponds strictly to

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The logical continuation of this argument is to cross the degree-of-eclecti-

Pop, songs 47.0

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None One Two >Two All N

Preeminence of the omnivore/univore opposition

The 4,074 individuals studied in the MCA are characterized by 17 dichoto-

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interpretable in terms of social and cultural stratification of tastes. The

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FIGURE II. – Space of musical tastes (II). Map of factors 1 and 3

FIGURE III. – Space of musical tastes (III). Map of factors 2 and 4

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Stratification of preferences by generation

The second factor, which explains slightly over 9% of total variance,

Average taste and highbrow taste

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differentiation, the opposition being between “pure” and “functional”

Cultural legitimacy and generation

Once the age variable has been understood as an indicator of generation

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Typology of attitudes toward recorded music

Using Ward’s algorithm method, I have determined a classification in

Five preference profiles

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socio-occupational status. This “young” and “counter-cultural” eclecticism

The distinctive properties of enlightened eclecticism

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TABLE III. – Distribution of groups by occupational status (%)

Group I Group II Group III Group IV Group V All

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