Sociability and distinction: An ethnographic study of a French nursing home

• Explores the relationship between sociability in a nursing home and residents' previous social positions
• Examines what hierarchies take place among residents
• Shows that sociability in nursing homes is mainly structured by the intertwining of “levels of disability” among residents, the social composition of the institution, and the relative value attributed to each type of capital (in the sense of Bourdieu) in this context

How do residents' previous social positions influence the ways in which they deal with social life in nursing home? Based on observations and interviews in a private nursing home in France, this article describes daily life in the facility, the disability-based distinctions observed among residents, the strategies they use to “find their place,” and the references they make about their former social position in collective encounters. It shows that sociability in nursing homes is structured by the intertwining of “levels of disability” among residents, the social composition of the institution and its local surroundings, and the relative value attributed to each type of capital (in the sense of Bourdieu) in this context. The author proposes some assumptions that aim to generalize these specific findings.