The Importance Of Cultural Capital

The main focus of this paper is to explain how cultural capital is passed through generations and how it affects educational success of an individual. Cultural capital is a concept derived from Bourdieu 's cultural and social reproduction, it represents the symbolic and materialistic way of life passed down from parents to their children, these skills and values passed down influence the life experiences and life chances of the children, either putting them at an advantage or disadvantage to others. Cultural capital is a sociological concept expressed by Pierre Bourdieu. It is described in the Wotherspoon textbook, it is defined as “ the resources that people possess for economic and social success, which include not only wealth and economic

In the example given above, if that child is sent to a french immersion school he or she would have an advantage compared to a child who has only learnt english, if the said child goes ahead to pursuit french as a post secondary degree he or she will have an advantage over other students. Learning the language from the family will be an embodied cultural capital and it gives the student an advantage. Other forms of embodied capital can also include cultural beliefs, values, opinions and morals, political beliefs, studying and work ethic, etc. Wu(2008; 202) states that “The theory suggests that the effect of families’ social origin on children’s educational performance is, to a certain extent, due to the greater cultural capital of high-status parents that helps the children have greater competence in mastering the curriculum in schools.” These traits are learned behaviour from an individuals family, an individuals study ethics, vocational skills, reading and writing abilities will enable him or her to attain educational success. Students from the middle class and upwards often go into

Cultural capital enables individuals of middle and upper class backgrounds gain more post secondary degrees and this helps them in attaining well paid jobs in the labour market that will maintain or boss their position on the social ladder. The concept of cultural capital can be seen in different forms like Embodied cultural capital which i basically learned beliefs, habits, languages, ideals and work ethics from their immediate social environment e.g learning language and vocational skills from ones family. Another form of cultural capital is the objectified cultural capital which includes physical resources passed down to an individual, it also includes the capacity to gain or afford said resources, examples of these resources are laptops and textbooks which can be very expensive. The third form is the institutionalized cultural capital which is based on educational attainment, this cultural capital affects the social standing of whoever has more of it (degrees and diplomas) in the present labour market which is based on credentialism. This paper also focused on how cultural capital is passed down from parents to their kids, it is majority an inherited trait or resource. Parents who have high cultural capital will pass it on to their