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Cultural Capital (Key Terms (Cultural Capital – having the skills,…
Cultural Capital
Key Terms
Cultural Capital – having the skills, knowledge, norms and values which can be used to get ahead in education and life more generally.
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Cultural Capital Theory is a Marxist theory of differential educationl achievement. In contrast to cultural deprivation theory, cultural capital theory does not see working class culture as inferior, or lacking in any way, it just sees it as different to middle class culture.
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Educational Capital
One important (and easy to undersand) aspect of cultural capital theory is educational capital – middle class parents are educated to a higher level than working class parents
One important (and easy to undersand) aspect of cultural capital theory is educational capital – middle class parents are educated to a higher level than working class parents
Evaluations
Positive
Cultural capital seems more relevant now with neoliberal education policies – marketisation (and free schools) gave parents and schools more freedom – middle class parents and schools use this freedom to exlude the working classes.
Social capital theory is useful in explaning the punishingly depressing fact that privately educated children often use their social networks to get internships to get them into the ‘professions
Unlike cultural deprivation theory Bourdieu etc. do not see working class culture as inferior or blame the working classes for the failure of their children.
Negative
From a research methods point of view, it is more difficult to research and test out some aspects of cultural capital theory
If cultural deprivation theory is true – there are no practical solutions to reducing class inequalities in education within the existing system – more radical (revolutionary?) changes are necessary.
It may be unfair to blame schools for being biased against working class children – many schools put extra resources into helping working class children.