Bourdieu's Theory of Cultural Capital

One of the major causes of underachievement is the lack of economic capital, proposed by Pierre Bourdieu (1984), that a working class family possess. As item A states, ‘sociologists claim that factors outside the school, such as parental attitudes and parental income, are the main causes of working class underachievement.’ Children who belong to a working class background may not be able to afford the necessary equipment or meet the

What does social class mean? Social class means a division of a society based on social and economic status. Now, what does hidden curriculum mean? Hidden Curriculum means a side effect of education, such as norms, values and beliefs in the classroom. Accordingly, Jean Anyon’s, author of “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” claims that each and every social class has it’s own very different way of teaching in schools. Anyon states a plethora of strengths and weaknesses in this article. She believes that all children have been taught to learn, comprehend, and behavior in plenty of different ways due to the social class’s they have been thrown into. Anyon examined each social class which have been named The Working Class, The Middle Class, The Affluent Professional Class, and lastly The Executive Elite Class. An educational perspective came well from her work view point and based off it - I have thrown in my own opinion by agreeing with her during this essay.

Power, class and status are all interlinked to social and cultural capital in reinforcing inequality. People who have a low income and status, and belong to the working class tend to not have as many social networks and support as well as the cultural ‘taste’ and values as those who are able to afford much more than them. Skeggs (as cited in Watt 2008) points out how people with the working-class identity do not receive the social support like other ‘ordinary people’ in the

Bowles and Gintis also reject the idea that the education is meritocratic, and providing equal opportunities for everybody. Middle class children will gain high qualifications and receive higher pad jobs because of their ability but also through their large quantities of cultural capital. Whereas working class children may not have the same opportunities to receive cultural capital this creating inequalities within the education system, much like the class system. This is called cultural reproduction. Bourdieu believes that education reproduces the culture and class system. It shows the importance of the upper class culture and therefore reinforces the power those have over the working class. They are allowed to do this by basing the education system off cultural capital, whilst the culture that the working class children are receiving is not on the education system and therefore they lose interest. Bourdieu believes that education has been developed by the bourgeoisie and therefore the working class have never had any real ownership on the education system they are forced to be a part of.

Social class is based on the relationship one has to the elements of society, and as children in the American education system grow and develop, it is a plausible query that these education systems might be the starting point to where social class based relationships such as people, ownership, and productive activity are fostered. In social activist and American professor Jean Anyon’s essay “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, the relation to social class and the established cycle of education systems is the main topic that Anyon aims to dissect and argue. Through extensive observation research, Anyon studies the behavior and curriculum taught at working-class, middle-class, affluent professional, and executive elite schools

The article begins by detailing the human desire for social power and how, through class, certain forms of power are achieved. He contends that the pursuit of social power is essentially an attempt to acquire social honour. Weber also mentions that power does not always lead to social honour and uses the notion of the

The axis of inequality that will be focused throughout this paper is the social class. Social class is defined as a group of individuals who are categorized according to class (i.e. poor, middle, and upper) due to their income, wealth, power, and occupation. Social class is socially constructed by the way we view how much income and wealth a person possess (Ore, 20011a, 10). In reality it is much more than that. According to the text, poverty is not only the shortage of income, but it is the rejection of opportunities and choices that leads a person to a standard way of living (Ore, 2011a, 10). Stereotyping also contributes to it being socially constructed. These stereotypes influence us by defining who is who based on their principles in each class category. This can cause some to feel worthless.

This week’s readings are following the theme of the class, and its connection to forming a family and child rearing. There are three articles that discuss the way children are raised, the effect of marriage on the class and on the growing inequality as well as the pressure that people face due to instability in their jobs and economic life. Connecting socioeconomics and sociocentrism orientation, class and family are shown from different angles in order to understand inequalities and class divisions.

By incorporating his own sociological thinking and data, McLeod creates a whole new way of thinking about social class through his own research and findings. Most in particular to this is how he analyzed Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital and habitus. He states, “Bourdieu’s most important contribution to reproduction theory is the concept of social capital, which he defines as the general cultural background, knowledge, disposition, and skills that are passed from one generation to the next.” (McLeod 2009: 13). This contribution of Bourdieu’s theory shows how the lower classes shape the attitudes and aspirations of both Brothers and Hallway Hangers throughout. By definition, habitus refers to values, dispositions, and expectations of particular social groups that are acquired through the activities and experiences of everyday life. Bourdieu explains how the cultural capital of having an education and social skills that can be converted to economic capital can lead the upper and working class to cultural

Bowles and Gintis also focus on the different expectations of the school's faculty. Working class parents expect faculty to teach rules and submission to authority, which are considered an important value for success in the workplace, while middle class parents expect different values to be taught. These expectations, which Bowles and Gintis emphasize as their "correspondence principle", reinforce social reproduction, and "Even within the same school, argue Bowles and Gintis, educational tracks, which cater to different classes of students, emphasize different values" (13). The school system uses many hidden devices in order to reassure that there remains a separation between classes, educational tracks being one of them. It is argued that students of the working class are doomed to fail before they even get started, which Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital can help explain.

Bourdieu argues that although “snob” (Peterson, Kern. Oct, 1996, Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore, pg.900-907, published by American Sociological Association) tends to be assimilated into “omnivore” (Peterson, Kern. Oct, 1996, Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore, pg.900-907, published by American Sociological Association), people can still see the boundary between two classes because it is easy to go downward, but going upward is always facing difficulty. It illustrates that upper class people can enter lower class culture easily, however, lower class people are having difficulty to engage with upper class culture because from upper class position, they have enough money to spend in lower class culture. In contrast, lower class people still do not have enough money to spend like upper class people although they can access into the upper class culture. For instance, beer is not considered as an expensive beverage as compared to the upper class usually drink, however people who only afford to buy beer are not affordable to buy such as champagnes as many as they consume

Lareau argues that race plays almost no role in comparison to social economic class in how children develop and gain the skill set they use as they get older. Lareau emphasis that parents from different classes use different tools and methods in order to raise their children such as concerted cultivation and natural growth. Annette Lareau argues that class influences both educational and work outcomes. The conclusions she made early on in her book had been proven when she went back a decade later. The majority of those interviewed who came from a working class or poor family had either dropped out of high school or graduated, but did not pursue higher learning education. Of those interviewed in these lower classes, a couple did attend college but never completed any course or obtained a degree (Lareau 274). Another interesting find was that the majority of the

In the article, “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life”, Lareau discusses on how social status serve as a factor

As described in Social Class Matters, placement in a class system can occur through ascription or achievement. The class that a person is ascribed to or achieves greatly correlates to the privilege in their life, and can determine many things in life – access to quality education, availability of medical care or living conditions. Social class matters as it can almost pre-determine the quality of life that a person will lead.

As with many other forms of capital, financial capital and cultural capital can often be lacking for individuals of lower classes. Financial capital refers to wages, tangible items, and savings, while cultural capital refers to learned behaviors and outlooks often established by parents. There are “greater disparities between the wealthy and poor [in America] than residents in other developed nations (349).” The wealth of the upper class represents one third of the nation’s total wealth, and this wealth allows members of the upper class distinct advantages over those with low financial capital (349). Additionally, those with higher financial capital also tend to transfer greater cultural capital to their children.