Field theory in cultural capital studies of educational attainment

Abstract

This article argues that there is a double problem in international research in cultural capital and educational attainment: an empirical problem, since few new insights have been gained within recent years; and a theoretical problem, since cultural capital is seen as a simple hypothesis about certain isolated individual resources, disregarding the structural vision and important related concepts such as field in Bourdieu’s sociology. We (re-)emphasize the role of field theory in cultural capital research in education, taking into consideration current concerns in international quantitative research.

Keywords:

• Bourdieu
• cultural capital
• field theory
• educational attainment

Notes

1. That is, before the translation of Distinction into English (Bourdieu 1984) and before the notion of field had been fully developed (notably in Bourdieu 1996a, 1996b).

2. By tradition, we use the standard notions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ SES and education throughout this article. However, as will be evident from the argument, this terminology is strictly speaking problematic. ‘Short’ and ‘long’ education and ‘dominant’ and ‘dominated’ socioeconomic positions would be preferable alternatives.

3. For a related critique of the social ontology of general linear regression models issued the same year, see Abbott (1988).

4. In a similar vein, Munk (2009) has indicated that high-CC families mobilize and invest their cultural capital in new ways in order to stay ahead, either reducing or entirely cancelling out the relative gain of low-SES investments.