CULTURAL CAPITAL: CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

What are the four measures of class?

• social capital (who you know)

• credential capital (where you received your degree)

• income/consumption capital

• investment capital (stocks and bonds)

How are classes reproduced?

• At home

• In school

• Shopping

• At work

What is cultural capital?

The general cultural background, knowledge, disposition and skills that are passed from one generation to the next

What is Habitus?

Ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions; the way individuals perceive the social world around them and react to it. [disgust and “get used to it’]

Habitus: Dispositions are shared by people with similiar —— and —— ——-

social material conditions

Habitus is acquired through ——- = how individuals are ——

imitation, socialized (producing individual experience and opportunities)

• Pierre Bourdieu “the classification game”

Schools largely reproduce the ——

class structure

• schools reward cultural capital of the dominant classes and devalue that of lower classes

Because kids of upper classes develop —— and ——- competence through family upbringing that provides them the means appropriation for success in school they are already familiar with the ——- culture the educational system implicitly requires

linguistic, cultural, dominant

—- is then turned into —— —— by the acquisition of superior jobs.

Cultural capital, economic capital

• Schools reproduce social inequality through the medium of academic credentials

• Schools are a trading post where cultural capital —→ superior academic performance

Four Main Points:

1) Distinctive ——— is transmitted by each class

2) Schools systematically valorize ——— and depreciates —— of the ——

3) Differential academic achievement is ——- into ——-

4) Schools legitimate this process by making —— appear to be on basis of ——— —- and ——

1) cultural capital

2) upper class cultural capital, capital of the lower classes

3) retranslated back, economic wealth

4) success, merit, gifts, skills

Achievement Ideology

Claims that success comes from individual merit, so if you are poor that is your fault. Idea that solely effort and determination= success.

• If the educational system is reproducing existing class/status, then meritocracy is not working!

Neoliberalism

Advocating for free-market capitalism with minimal government intervention.

Social Reproduction theory

Identifies barriers to social mobility that limit (but do not entirely prevent) lower and working class people to move up.

Common sense is a creation of

Habitus