Submersed in Social Segregation

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which upper middle class families acquire, transmit, and preserve their social and cultural capitals through membership at the Pine View Swim and Tennis Club, a semiprivate facility located near a major mid-Atlantic city in the United States. Drawing on Cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s theorizing on sport participation and social class position, as well as 4 years of ethnographic investigation, I argue that the pool, as a cultural field, maintains socially segregated boundaries offering members a significant, yet hidden vehicle through which they can facilitate their class and race-based privilege. Specifically, Pine View fosters an important sense of community and belonging in and through members, as well as an exclusive social learning opportunity, thus contributing to the (re)production of their White, privileged habitus.