This paper is an essay of self-reflection on the itinerary of a social scientist whose encounter with the work of Bourdieu helped illuminate the origins of educational inequality in Australia. How can we explain the magnitude and persistence of social differences in examination results and in access to higher education? Bourdieu’s research enabled Australian scholars to create a model of structural inequality in which a hierarchy of curriculum is exploited by a hierarchy of schools. The cognitive and cultural demands of the curriculum advantage educated families who pool their linguistic and economic assets in selective schools, thus converting social power into academic merit. The universities ultimately determine the curriculum and operate it as a vehicle of academic discrimination, guaranteeing their own prestige through severity of selection. Inequalities persist because new populations lack the family and school resources to master the curriculum and are marginalized in weaker areas of the curriculum and in poorer schools. The landscape of Australian education is different from that of France. But Bourdieu’s insights into inequality in France helped equip Australian researchers with the conceptual tools needed to understand how a different education system could produce recognizably similar social outcomes.