Symbolic recycling

Developing a social sense of class during childhood not just is a question of direct, concrete, or explicit experience of class differences but also includes a social process that we call “symbolic recycling.” Our concept of symbolic recycling could be defined in the following manner: when children have to find their way in previously unknown or distant domains of social practice (such as the system of social class and occupations), they tend to apply – with unavoidable discrepancies and imperfections – symbolic schemes that are prevalent in the areas of practice they are more familiar with, chiefly the ordinary areas of their own socialization, such as the domestic or school environment. This chapter aims to provide a much more complete definition, by positioning it among other ideas and concepts, and by defending its heuristic value on an empirical basis.