Managing everyday life: the conceptualisation and value of cultural capital in navigating everyday life for working-class youth

Abstract

This article draws upon Bourdieu's concept of ‘cultural capital’ to examine how working-class young people negotiate and navigate everyday life in their neighbourhoods. Young people's relationship with cultural capital has traditionally been conceptualised by its value in the formal institutional setting (i.e. schools); being ‘owned’ and ‘used’ by parents or professional workers such as teachers to advantage (or disadvantage) certain groups; or by being passed down to young people through intergenerational linkages. Limited recognition has been given to the embodied and objectified nature of cultural capital in the lives of the young themselves or how it may operate in different informal settings and social interactions to structure and situate their individual agency. This article centralises the voices of a group of young people living in British working-class neighbourhoods to show how certain cultural illiteracies and cultural assets help them manage everyday life. Life in such areas is both ‘dangerous’ and ‘risky’ and requires them to draw upon forms of cultural capital recognised amongst their peers to help them construct ‘safe’ and ‘successful’ routes through working-class transitions.

Keywords:

• class
• cultural capital
• risk
• young adulthood