What is Cultural Capital?

        Like many other terms, this term was also popularized and developed in the late period of 20th century. Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, who used this term in his work. The earlier use of the term was not really broad, but Pierre Bourdieu later worked on it to make it a theoretical concept. He did explain it as a broader concept making it an analysis tool in his study0 published in year 1979 with the name “A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste”. The cultural capital can be defined that “Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviors, and skills that one can tap into to demonstrate one's cultural competence, and thus one's social status or standing in society” (J. Guillory).  One of Bourdieu’s peers named Claude Passeron was also the one, who made his contribution in developing this concept. It is a fact that society is stratified and people live together in these societies with their cultural capital. It means that people do have different social assets including dressing style, speech, intellect & education, which define their role and mobility in a society (Cole)

            The important question to answer with regards to cultural capital is that does everyone possess it? The answer is “yes”, it is possessed by everyone in some extent. The people living in a society do have the essence of cultural capital and it is deployed by them in their daily life, when they move around in their society. All types of cultural capital are considered valid, but in real world situations, all of them are not considered equal. The cultural capital is embodied in persons with the help of education and socialization. They take knowledge from these sources, and show this knowledge to others by their actions. Cultural capital is also considered to be a concept relatable to objectified state. It means that it is related to material objects as well. There are different material objects such as computers, books, furniture, accessories of dressing, as well as food (Cultural Learning Alliance). These objects can also define that what kind of cultural capital is possessed by someone. The institutionalized state is also something referred with cultural capital. The good examples to elaborate this concept are the academic degrees and qualifications of people or even their job, political, religious titles. It is also important to understand that cultural capital is closely related to social and economic capital, because they often come across with each other in different ways. Like if someone has great economic capital, then he/she can have access to esteem educational institutions, which means that cultural capital of knowledge would be lot better to many with lower economic capital, and it will also define a better social capital as well (Cole)

How do people think of cultural capital?

            It is important for people to understand that what cultural capital is, and how it is different from economic as well as social capital. The people often confuse these terms, because they don’t perceive the real essence of these terms. The people should analyze the term with comprehensive details so that they can look at each aspect of it, and they can get necessary information about cultural capital. The people should realize the fact that like economic and social capital, the cultural capital is quite important too, because it can define that what would be the quality of life perceived in a society. There can be societies, where knowledge and education is taken as more precious capital as compared to many others, where money maybe defines the social capital of people. The people must also perceive rightly about cultural capital and realize its relevance with social and economic capital so that a proper formation is developed in the end for people of every age, gender, race etc. (Deshmukh, Dongre and Rajendran)

            The people should also realize the real importance of cultural capital in any given society. The great thing about cultural capital is that it can change the world in so many ways. The concept developed by Pierre Bourdieu has great importance for the world, because he tried to come up with an idea that people should have cultural capital such as their language, education, habits, knowledge etc. along with social and economic capital (Guillory). The beauty of cultural capital is that it starts developing from the early childhood and it keeps developing with the passage of time. It determines that how people will get ahead in life competing with each other. The young people must look at this concept as a great tool for defining their personalities in a society. For instance, cultural capital can help people to know who actually they are, what kind of interests they have, and how they should engage with other by navigating their choices, which they embodied from their cultural capital (Walker)

How does it affect school students?

            The cultural capital has great significance for school students in so many ways, because it can have great impact on their academic performance and achievement. The people may not think deeply that their social relations at their school can play a big role in their future. So, being a school student, it is important to understand that what cultural capital is possessed by someone, because it will define his/her social status and relationships in a given educational environment (Farkas). If a person is studying in a privileged school as compared to the one who studies in an average level school, the first one would likely develop better cultural and social capital for his/her future. The school students coming with better educational background and skills can develop better essence of knowledge and can be more productive members of a society (Raskoff)

            It has been proved by the research that cultural capital can be important for school students, as it can help to put a positive effect on their academic achievement and performance in school. It has also been proved that when students have better kind of cultural capital, their relationships can be better with their teacher in so many ways. It has been observed that academic performance in educational institutions like school can vary for students in terms of expectations. It means that teachers will have more expectations from school students with better cultural capital. In real terms, it may not be proved by the research, but it has been analyzed that teachers do perceive different about students with different kind of cultural capital. It clearly depicts that cultural capital can have great impact on school students (Wildhagen)

How does it affect students going to university?

            In an ideal state of affairs, if a student at university takes great interest in his/her studies and works hard to complete his/her tasks, then he/she should be rewarded with great academic results. But is it the only thing regarding the success and academic performance of university students? And the answer is “no”, because there are many other factors as well, which can affect the university students, and one of them is cultural capital. A study was conducted to see that how life of university students can be influenced by their higher education. The response obtained from students revealed that many of the students said that university experience was a great one for them to enhance their skills and knowledge (Johnson). But there were many, who were not able to say this. It happened because cultural and social capital has great role to play in this regard. The people coming from rural background with less amount of cultural and social capital were way behind as compared to students, who came from urban backgrounds with better cultural and social capital. The students with better cultural capital were able to succeed more and gained more experience and knowledge (Haili). It shows that hard work is not the only thing for university students to compete and succeed, rather cultural and social capital also played a big part in it. It also stress the importance of developing cultural capital equally for everyone so that they can enjoy the same level of success, which is only enjoyed by the students from urban background with better cultural capital (McKenna)

Does it affect people’s decisions about life?

            The cultural capital like social & economic capital does impact decisions made by people in their lives. The cultural capital allows people to define their personalities that who they actually are, so how they should conduct themselves in a society. For instance, a person with lower social status, economic capital may have lower cultural capital as well, so when he/she will have to make a decision to study in a university, the decision will certainly go in favor of average level universities, because person with lower cultural capital may not afford to study in privileged universities. In addition to that cultural capital will also define the relationships of people with each other. It means that people with better cultural capital may form relations only with those, who have better cultural capital (Pinxten and Lievens)

References of Cultural Capital

Cole, Nicki Lisa. What Is Cultural Capital? Do I Have It? 2019. 29 July 2019. <https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-cultural-capital-do-i-have-it-3026374>.

Cultural Learning Alliance. What is cultural capital? 2019. 28 July 2019. <https://culturallearningalliance.org.uk/what-is-cultural-capital/>.

Deshmukh, Pradeep R, et al. "Role of social, cultural and economic capitals in perceived quality of life among old age people  in Kerala, India." Indian Journal of Palliative Care 21.1 (2015): 39-44.

Farkas, George. Human Capital Or Cultural Capital?: Ethnicity and Poverty Groups in an Urban School District. Transaction Publishers, 2016.

Guillory. Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Guillory, John. Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. University of Chicago Press, , 2013.

Haili, Ma. Urban Politics and Cultural Capital: The Case of Chinese Opera. Routledge, 2016.

Johnson, Louise. Cultural Capitals: Revaluing The Arts, Remaking Urban Spaces. Routledge, 2016.

McKenna, Sioux. How class and social capital affect university students. 2018. 29 July 2019. <http://theconversation.com/how-class-and-social-capital-affect-university-students-92602>.

Pinxten, Wouter and John Lievens. "The importance of economic, social and cultural capital in understanding health inequalities: using a Bourdieu-based approach in research on physical and mental health perceptions." Sociology of Health & Illness 36.7 (2014): 1095–1110.

Raskoff, Sally. Social and Cultural Capital at School. 2014. 29 July 2019. <https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2014/11/social-and-cultural-capital-at-school.html>.

Walker, Lawrence. The importance of cultural capital. 2017. 29 July 2019. <https://www.anewdirection.org.uk/blog/the-importance-of-cultural-capital>.

Wildhagen, Tina. "Why Does Cultural Capital Matter for High School Academic Performance? An Empirical Assessment of Teacher-Selection and Self-Selection Mechanisms as Explanations of the Cultural Capital Effect." The Sociological Quarterly 50.1 (2009): 173-200.