CULTURAL CAPITAL
ARTHUR’S NAME
UNIVERSITY AFFILIATION
Introduction
Pierre Bourdieu, a French social theorist, developed the cultural capital concept in his early sixties. According to Huang, (2019: 10), he defines the theory as “a form of value associated with culturally authorized tastes, consumption patterns, attributes, skills and awards”. Alternatively, Ltd (2020: 103), denotes that cultural capital theory is “the collection of symbolic elements such as skills, tastes, posture, clothing, mannerisms, material belongings, credentials, etc. that one acquires through being part of a particular social class and sharing similar forms of cultural capital with others”.
Huang (2019) primarily indicates that cultural capital is in value-form meaning that it has observable benefits. He further shows that these benefits are witnessed in an individual’s behaviour, approved explicitly by culture. Ltd (2020) definition is different from Huang’s in that Ltd shows how the symbolic elements are attained and ingrained in a person. This assignment will center on the description given by Ltd (2020) because it provides a broader scope of the elements transmitted to an individual through social-cultural interactions, and it also depicts how these elements are acquired. Huang (2019) generalizes on the details without expounding on where and how they come by.
Constructs
Bourdieu affirmed that cultural capital is made up of three forms, that is, embodied, objectified and institutionalized (Robson & Sanders, 2009). The embodied capital refers to knowledge that is passively inherited or acquired consciously through education and socialization to culture. This form is obtained over time, and it influences and an individual’s personality and way of thinking. For example, a person who can read, play and integrate music after completing a musical course is said to possess embodied cultural capital.
The objectified state often depicts an individual’s economic standards. It alludes to an individual’s property that has cultural meaning or significance and can be purchased or sold for financial profit. An example of objectified cultural capital is the Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The art is figurative, and it has cultural meaning drawn from the woman’s Florentine fashion. Institutionalized shows how cultural capital is measured in terms of rank, quantity and quality and is often academic or professional achievements—for instance, an accountant, which is a job title.
Propositions
The constructs listed are associated and of outstanding significance, because students who grow up in cultured families, that is, families that still uphold the culture and possess paintings, and musical instrument, among other elements, tend to be more endowed with cultural capital (Brown & Szeman, 2000). As a result, these students have an advantage in numerous social settings, better prep school performance and in future, acquire a higher social, economic position than students who do not come from cultured families.
Logic
In his lifetime, Bourdieu came across a handful of stimulating issues which were derived from the cultural and social context in which individuals existed. At the time he came up with the cultural capital theory, he was studying the French education structure when he identified one striking issue (Bourdieu, Pierre & Jean-Claude, 1977). Students from a middle-class background tend to be persistent in their schooling while working-class students often dropped out.
Pierre Bourdieu then concluded that as much as education is supposed to prompt social mobility, the education system was key in reproducing the already existing social class structure. He further showed that the social class structure was primarily caused by differences in cultural capital among the students, taking into account the cultural capital definition given by Ltd (2020). The school system recognized and awarded cultural capital that was dominant in the middle and upper class. The poor and the working class lacked the cultural capital, and the students were often disadvantaged.
Boundary Conditions / Assumptions
Bourdieu based his cultural capital theory on several assumptions which included that culture is a contesting field just as it is in the financial world. In this, culture is depicted as a competitive realm where individuals keep pace with amassing cultural capital goods and practices, which are then lead to distinction and superiority (Swartz, 1997). Other assumptions include that natural talent is as a result of social advantage, intelligence is genetic, and there is a static social arrangement.
The boundary conditions define where the theory can be applied and where it is limited. Cultural capital is employed in education systems that award high culture and blogging through a public array of skill and taste. However, this concept is limited to a specific social setting such that it is relevant only in objects of high culture (Fowler, 1997). This limitation caused the theory to receive criticism as sociologists debated on it. The theory makes it difficult to explain contemporary Western communities, particularly in the field of fashion, where change is of substance.
Marketing implications
Cultural capital allows marketers to segment their consumers through tastes. The marketer can identify a group which shares the same taste regime in a bid to sell any form of cultural capital. Tastes bring about the distinction, and as a result, it draws boundaries (Gronow, 1997). The marketing target is, therefore, dependent on an individual’s taste. For a marketer, say, a blogger, who possesses cultural capital he or she should attempt to sell his or her skills, intelligence, clothing and taste. Such individuals should communicate to consumers by displaying these elements to the populace majorly over the internet. The amount that is charged will depend on the public’s demand for a particular taste.
References
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron (1977), Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, London: Sage.
Brown, N. & Szeman, I. (2000). Pierre Bourdieu: fieldwork in culture. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Fowler, B. (1997). Pierre Bourdieu and cultural theory: critical investigations. London Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage.
Gronow, Jukka (1997), The Sociology of Taste, Routledge: London
Huang, X. (2019). Understanding Bourdieu – Cultural Capital and Habitus. Review Of European Studies, 11(3), 45. doi: 10.5539/res.v11n3p45
Ltd, W. (2020). Cultural Capital | Social Theory Rewired. Retrieved 19 May 2020, from http://routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/cultural-capital
Robson, K. & Sanders, C. (2009). Quantifying Theory: Pierre Bourdieu. Dordrecht: Springer.
Swartz, D. (1997). Culture & power: the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago London: University of Chicago Press.