Cultural Capital
Cultural capital is a concept, developed by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, that can refer to both achieved and ascribed characteristics. They are desirable qualities (either material or symbolic) that contribute to one's social status; any advantages a person has which give him/her a higher status in society. It may include high expectations, forms of knowledge, skill, and education, among other things.
Parents provide children with cultural capital, the attitudes and knowledge that make the educational system a comfortable familiar place in which they can succeed easily. There are other types of capital as well; Social capital refers to ones membership in groups, relationships, and networks. It too can have a significant impact on achievement level.
Read more about this topic: Achieved Status
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or capital:
“If we can learn ... to look at the ways in which various groups appropriate and use the mass-produced art of our culture ... we may well begin to understand that although the ideological power of contemporary cultural forms is enormous, indeed sometimes even frightening, that power is not yet all-pervasive, totally vigilant, or complete.”
—Janice A. Radway (b. 1949)
“I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)