Distinctions and Class Solidificaion Strategies of the Upper Class Golf Participants (단어 첫 글자는 대문자로 작성해 주세요)

Ki Nam KwonㆍSoo Woen Lim  Kyungpook National University

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The purpose of this study is not only to investigate what kinds of characteristics of upper class golf participants have but what types of tactics the people of upper class choose in order to strengthen their own class status and how to differentiate themselves from the people of rest of classes.

To achieve this purpose, this study performed a case study with the members of 'S golf club'. By applying purposeful sampling method, seven members attached to 'S party' in the 'S golf club' and one supplementary participant have been selected as the research participants for this study. All Data have been collected through participant observations and in-depth interviews during the time period from January until August of 2008 and relevant materials having been collected were analysed with the method of textual analysis. The results drawn out by implementing aforementioned methods are as follows;

Comparison of the total amounts and component ratios of economical capital, cultural capital, and social capital revealed that the upper class holds much more capital than other classes, although slight differences existed between each cases. Having these capitals as a background, positions of the participants within social space were centered at a particular place. Through this phenomenon, it was confirmed that they share the same hierarchical status. It was also shown that these participants, who share the same status, also share the same habitus owing to the fact that they have similar hobbies and tastes. For these reasons, two class characteristics emerged; selective affinity, which inspire their hierarchical awareness, and exclusiveness of field, which, according to the principle of exclusion, thoroughly exclude those who do not meet the requirements.