[2] Bourdieu made efforts to stress that symbolic violence is generally not a deliberate action by a hegemonic power, but rather an unconscious reinforcement of the status quo that is seen as the “norm” by those who exist within that social stratification.
Although La distinction focused mainly on aesthetics and taste within modern French culture, it established a framework within which he and other sociologists would examine meta-behavior within society as it relates to power, social capital, and individual habitus.
For example, in his Learning Capitalist Culture (2010), anthropologist Douglas E. Foley mentions that Bourdieu's ideas on symbolic violence have been used by critical race and feminist scholars to discuss the mistreatment of oppressed groups.
In their work, critical race and feminist scholars have pointed out that patriarchal and racist social settings are where students from oppressed groups experience symbolic violence.
[5] In Learning Capitalist Culture (2010), Foley also mentions that many scholars in the United States have talked about Bourdieu's ideas on symbolic violence as well as the monitoring of working-class minority students.
[6][7][8][9][10] Seth M. Holmes applies the theory of symbolic violence to the study of immigration between the United States and Mexico in Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies (2014).
The introduction of these digital communities provided an additional medium for the spread of symbolic violence through the action of "trolling" which according to Claire Hardaker is defined as "the sending or submission of provocative emails, social media posts or 'tweets', with the intention of inciting an angry or upsetting response from its intended target, or victim.
"[13] While the act of trolling affects a wide range of social media users, with regard to symbolic violence it is frequently directed at women and minority groups.
In the United States there is a national rhetoric regarding the term “ghetto,” where a set of behavioral norms and traits symbolizing impoverished, crime-prone, dilapidated, and violent neighborhoods are ascribed to blacks in or near urban centers.
Zentella explains how people would react if a person spoke with a "lisp" in the area she grew up, "if any Spaniard in our circle had ever dared to speak that way they would have been ridiculed".