Cultural Capital

Cultural Capital comprises three subtypes: embodied, objectified and institutionalised (Bourdieu, 1986:47). Bourdieu distinguishes between these three types of capital: * an embodied state. This is where cultural capital is embodied in the individual. It is both the inherited and acquired properties one’s self. Inherited not in the genetic sense, but more in the sense of time, cultural, and traditions bestow elements of the embodied state to another usually by the family through socialization. It is not transmittable instantaneously like a gift. It is strongly linked to one's habitus - a person's character and way of thinking. o Linguistic capital, defined as the mastery of and relation to language (Bourdieu, 1990:114), in the sense that it represents ways of speaking, can be understood as a form of embodied cultural capital. * an objectified state. Things which are owned, such as scientific instruments or works of art. These cultural goods can be transmitted physically (sold) as an exercise of economic capital, and “symbolically” as cultural capital. However, while one can possess objectified cultural capital by owning a painting, they can only "consume" the painting (understand its cultural meaning) if they have the correct type of embodied cultural capital (which may or may not be transmitted during the selling of the painting). * an institutionalized state. This is institutional recognition of the cultural capital held by an individual, most often understood as academic credentials or qualifications. This is mainly understood in relation to the labour market. It allows easier conversion of cultural capital to economic capital by guaranteeing a certain monetary value for a certain institutional level of achievement The concept cultural capital is fundamentally linked to the concepts of fields and habitus. These three concepts have been continually developed throughout all of Bourdieu’s work. A field can be any structure of social relations (King, 2005:223). It is a site of struggle for positions within that field and is constituted by the conflict created when individuals or groups endeavor to establish what comprises valuable and legitimate capital within that space. Therefore one type of cultural capital can be at the same time both legitimate and not, depending on the field in which it is located. It can be seen therefore, that the legitimation of a particular type of cultural capital is completely arbitrary. The power to arbitrarily determine what constitutes legitimate cultural capital within a specific field is derived from symbolic capital. Habitus is also important to the concept of cultural capital, as much as cultural capital can be derived from an individual’s habitus. It is often defined as being dispositions that are inculcated in the family but manifest themselves in different ways in each individual. (Harker, 1990:10; Webb, 2002:37; Gorder, 1980:226). It is formed not only by the habitus of the family (Harker et al, 1990:11) but also by the objective chances of the class to which the individual belongs (King, 2005:222), in their daily interactions (Gorder, 1980:226) and it changes as the individual’s position within a field changes (Harker, 1990:11). [edit] Use of the concept in theory and research The concept of cultural capital has received widespread attention all around the world, from theorists and researchers alike. It is mostly employed in relation to the education system, but on the odd occasion has been used or developed in other discourses. Use of Bourdieu’s cultural capital can be broken up into a number of basic categories. First, are those who explore the theory as a possible means of explanation or employ it as the framework for their research. Second, are those who build on or expand Bourdieu’s theory. Finally, there are those who attempt to disprove Bourdieu’s findings or to discount them in favour of an alternative theory. The majority of these works deal with Bourdieu’s theory in relation to education, only a small number apply his theory to other instances of inequality in society.