'the durably installed generative principles' which produce and reproduce the 'practices' of a class or class fraction (Bourdieu, 1977, 1984). Centrally, the habitus consists of a set of 'classificatory schemes' and 'ultimate values'. These, according to Bourdieu, are more fundamental than consciousness or language, and are the means by which groups succeed, or do not succeed, in imposing ways of seeing favourable to their own interests. While each habitus is set by historical and socially situated conditions, it also allows new forms and actions, but is far from allowing the 'creation of unpredictable (or unconditioned) novelty'.

 See Bibliography.