Cultural Capital: Power In Society

Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist who developed the idea of cultural capital as a way to explain how power in society was passed on and social class was maintained. Bourdieu explained the class theory using three key concepts. First key concept is cultural capital which is broken down into three: embodied, objectified, and institutionalised capital. And the other two key concepts are Habitus and Field. In this essay, Bourdieu’s main concepts will be outlined and discussed how relevant they are to our contemporary society.

Bourdieu’s cultural capital can be described as what you have and what you know. He divided cultural capital into three subtypes. They are objective, embodied and institutionalised.

Bourdieu claims that cultural capital is the collection of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that a person can learn to display one’s cultural capability and social status (Bourdieu,1986).

Embodied cultural capital includes things like skills you have. For example, your accent, dialect, posture, table etiquettes and mannerisms. It also includes taste such as taste in music, art and types of books. If you are exposed to jazz dance or contemporary dance for example, you will be more inclined to look for those dance moves. In this case you have gained knowledge of certain types of dance and you are most likely to prefer these type of dance because you are familiar with them.

Institutionalised capital includes things like credentials. For example, academic qualification and degrees. University degrees will be a powerful institutionalised capital as this will help you reach where you want to be in terms of your profession.

Objective capital includes things like materials that you own. For instance, a collection of paintings, certain brands for clothing and cars, furniture and appliances in their homes, books, and latest technology like fold up mobile phones.

Habitus is one of Bourdieu’s most significant key concepts. It is referred to as the physical depiction of cultural capital. Habitus consists of people's values, habits, nationality, religion, hobbies, skills, taste, social class etc. It involves our thoughts, tastes, beliefs, interests and our understanding of the world around us and is constructed through interaction with culture and family (Bourdieu,1984).

According to Bourdieu, habitus has a tendency to influence our behaviour and to create our social world as well as being influenced by outside(Bourdieu,1984). The inner and outer worlds are viewed by Bourdieu as mutual domains and because of the flexible nature of habitus changing with age, education, parenthood, travel etc. no two peoples’ habitus will be similar (Bourdieu, 1984).

For Bourdieu, Habitus is constructed through a social way, rather than an individual way which leads to patterns that are enduring and transferable from one arena to another. However that also changes in regards to specific contexts and over time. Habitus ‘is not fixed or permanent, and can be changed under unexpected situations or over a long historical period’ (Navarro 2006: 16).

Habitus is constructed by an interaction between the two over time. In this case, dispositions are created by past events and structures. This will shape current practices and structures. (Bourdieu, 1984)

The third key concept is fields. Fields refers to different types of social and institutional contexts in which individuals communicate and reproduce their dispositions. A field is a network or an organisation which may be religious, intellectual, educational and cultural (Navarro 2006). Each field has their own rules of access and certain practice. Individuals often experience different power according to which field they are in at a given point in time(Gaventa 2003), so arena and environment are key influences on habitus. Fields can be used to explain the differential power, for instance, a father who works as a shop assistant may have different power at home because he is the head of the family.

Bourdieu states that cultural capital is a key source of inequality. This is relevant to a great extent because evidence shows that the cultural capital transferred through families supports children to do better at school.

In 2009 book Culture, Class, Distinction Bennet et al, describe this system of privilege:

‘This is the reproduction circuit associated with schooling and formal education. Those parents equipped with cultural capital are able to drill their children in the cultural forms that predispose them to perform well in the educational system through their ability to handle “abstract” and “formal” categories. These children are able to turn their cultural capital into credentials, which can then be used to acquire advantaged positions themselves.’

The education system places greater importance on the knowledge and ways of thinking gained by obtaining cultural capital. Cultural capital assists people to network with other people who have had similar experiences and bank of knowledge and that in turn dominate opportunities to get high-paying jobs and reputable leadership roles, for instance like doctors and lawyers.

Huang(2019) has stated in his research article that “Bourdieu’s concept of Habitus can be used to explain the difference in preferences that people have due to their background. He mentioned that food preference for example can be seen as a way to distinguish their background. A person from the upper class might prefer to consume prestigious brands (of wine or cheese). On the other hand, a person from the lower class might focus on the quantity of the food. In other words, their priority will be making sure they are not starving. Moreover, taste makes a distinction and establishes a distance between the higher and the lower class groups. Bourdieu suggests that taste is cultivated from a person‘s early years.”

“Knowledge is gained from a specific culture that an individual lives in. For example, a working class person will have a particular, class-based understanding of the world and this will be different to the world view of people from the middle class. Moreover, these understandings are reflected in the person‘s behaviour, such as the way they talk, the choice of vocabulary, and attitudes and values”(Huang, 2019). Bourdieu believes Habitus can be understood as a series of dispositions, which influences a person‘s expectations of social life (Bourdieu cited in Huang 2019).

Huang(2019) also stated that “compared to the working class, a middle class person might be more comfortable in a conversation with professionals, such as lawyers and professors. The main reason for this is the similar background they come from, which leads to similar values, experiences of life and education (Bao, 1997 cited in Huang 2019). His argument was that “even though every faculty will have a similar level of educational background, one‘s values are determined mainly by the family background, which is also linked to Bourdieu‘s concept of cultural capital.”(Huang, 2019). He believes “obtaining the same educational level does not mean that one‘s cultural capital would be similar with another‘s. For example, a PhD holder who comes from a poor family, his understanding of the world and value could be very different.”(Huang, 2019)

This essay has outlined the key concepts of Bourdieu. The first concept was cultural capital which it was further broken down to: embodied, objectified, institutionalised. Second concept was habitus which talked about people’s habits, skills, dispositions and tastes. The last concept mentioned was the ‘field’ theory which refers to different arenas that operate with each of their set of own rules and access. To a great extent, Bourdieu’s argument is relevant to our contemporary society. Evidence suggested that the cultural capital passed on through families helps children do better at school. Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital and habitus help us understand better about peoples’ behavior due to their personal background. We are also able to predict certain behaviours by looking at ones from being part of a particular social class.

Reference

• Bao, Y. M. (1997). Cultural capital and social alchemy. (Y. M. Bao, Trans.). Shanghai: Shanghai ren min chu ban she
• Bennett, Tony et al (2009) Culture, Class, Distinction, Routledge
• Bourdieu, Pierre. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London, Routledge.
• Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” Pp. 241-258 in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by J. G. Richardson. New York: Greenwood Press.
• Liam Gillespie (2019), Pierre Bourdieu: Habitus
• Navarro, Z. (2006) ‘In Search of Cultural Interpretation of Power’, IDS Bulletin 37(6): 11-22.
• Nicki Lisa Cole (2019), What is cultural capital? Do I have it?
• Xiaowel Huang (2019), Understanding Bourdieu: Cultural Capital and Habitus in Review of European Studies 11(3):45 August 2019
• http://routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/habitus