Cultural capital as whiteness? Examining logics of ethno-racial representation and resistance

Abstract

There is a significant, longstanding tradition in British sociological research that renders cultural capital synonymous with whiteness. This article suggests that one substantive factor that contributes to the enduring relationship between whiteness and cultural capital is the paucity of research on the Black and ethnic minority middle classes. Studies of social class in the United Kingdom frequently render middle-class life synonymous with whiteness and all too often fix ethno-racial identities to the working classes. The article draws on a 14-month comparative ethnography as a case study to provide an asset-based reading of cultural capital among the Black Caribbean middle classes in Britain. The findings suggest that the seemingly exclusive link between whiteness and cultural capital is problematised by Black Caribbean young people, and therefore should be further critiqued in sociological and educational research, especially when developing cultural capital analyses.

Keywords:

• Cultural capital
• Black and ethnic minority middle classes
• Bourdieu
• social class
• whiteness