Everyone can visit the art treasures held in the great museums of the world. And yet, in fact, museums are visited by only a small segment of the population. What are the characteristics of those who display their love of art by strolling through the aisles of museums, and what distinguishes them from the majority of people who are effectively excluded, or exclude themselves, from their doors? In this study, Bourdieu and Darbel address such questions on the basis of a wide-ranging survey of museum visitors throughout Europe. By examining the social conditions of museum practices, they show that cultivated taste is not a natural gift but a socially inculcated disposition which is distributed unevenly, and which predisposes some to distinguish themselves through their love of art, while others are deprived of this privilege.

每个人都可以参观世界上伟大的博物馆中的艺术珍品。然而，事实上，只有一小部分人参观博物馆。那些通过在博物馆的过道上漫步来展示他们对艺术的热爱的人有什么特点，他们与那些实际上被排除在博物馆门外或排除自己的大多数人有什么区别？在这项研究中，Bourdieu和Darbel在对整个欧洲的博物馆参观者进行广泛调查的基础上解决了这些问题。通过研究博物馆实践的社会条件，他们表明，有修养的品味不是一种自然的天赋，而是一种社会灌输的倾向，它的分布是不均衡的，它使一些人通过对艺术的热爱而脱颖而出，而其他人却被剥夺了这种特权。