Cultural Reproduction - Education As An Agent of Cultural Reproduction

Education As An Agent of Cultural Reproduction

Bourdieu’s theory of cultural reproduction is concerned with the link between original class membership and ultimate class membership, and how this link is mediated by the education system.

According to Sullivan (2001), the theory of cultural reproduction entails three fundamental propositions: 1) parental cultural capital is inherited by children. 2) children’s cultural capital is converted into educational credentials. 3) educational credentials are a major mechanism of social reproduction in advanced capitalist societies.

The concept of education as an agent of cultural reproduction is argued to be less directly explained by the material and a subject taught, but rather more so through what is known as the Hidden curriculum. This refers to the socialization aspect of the education process. Through this, an adolescent acquires ‘appropriate attitudes and values’ needed to further succeed within the confines of education. An adolescent’s success or failure within the formal education system is a function of both their ability to demonstrate both measures of formal educational qualifications, as well as the attainment of the aforementioned qualities acquired through socialization mechanisms. This nature of education is reproduced throughout all stages of the system; from primary to post secondary. The ability of a student to progress to each subsequent level requires mastery of the prior. One’s ability to successfully complete the process of educational attainment strongly correlates to the capacity to realize adequate pay, occupational prestige, social status, etc. upon workforce participation.

There is no clear consensus as the exact role of education within cultural reproduction; and further to what degree, if any, this system either encourages or discourages topics such as social stratification, resource inequality, and discrepancies in access to opportunities. It's believed, however, that the primary means in which education determines an individual’s social status, class, values, and hierarchy, is through the distribution of cultural capital. This notion of cultural capital accumulation, and the degree to which an individual attains cultural capital, determines the individual’s access to resources and opportunities. There are, however several competing ideologies and explanations that have been significantly discussed.

Education provides functional prerequisites – known as Parsonian Functionalism states that education’s function is to provide individuals with the necessary values and attitudes for future work. This forms the assumption that regardless of the trade an individual participates, they will all need a similar set of social skills for their day to day interactions. From this concept, the idea of education as an Ideological state apparatus emerged. This elaborated on the prior by continuing that both family and school work together to reproduce social classes, occupational hierarchy, value orientation, and ideology.

Education mirrors capitalism – Education mirrors the capitalistic system, in that it sorts individuals, and assigns them the skills necessary to fulfill their destined occupation. An individual is provided the appropriate attitude that should be observed within the labor force. Further it establishes an “acceptance to the reproduction of submissive attitude to the established order” With this, education’s primary role is believed to be as a method of sorting individuals rather than equally educating. Those with high levels of accumulated social capital from parents or other sources are more easily able to excel within the system of education. Thus, these individuals will continue on a track that places these them into specialized and comparatively highly prestigious occupations. In contrast, those with little social or cultural capital will maintain low levels throughout the process of education and be placed into occupations with little demand for cultural capital – significantly less specialized and prestigious occupation. With this occupational selection, both the individuals will maintain the cultural norms and social status associated with each outside of their occupations as well.

With any of the concepts, whether considering the intrinsic value of education or the externally perceived value, each unit of educational attainment requires forgone earnings to attain. Insomuch as an individual would have to sacrifice wages in order to gain an additional unit of education. Outside of forgone monetary earnings, there are also direct expenses such as tuition, supplies, books, etc. one must consider when acquiring education, as well as less direct psychic costs. With this there is an economic consideration and tradeoff an individual must consider in their further education aspirations. One who has resources and the desire to continue education has a significant comparative advantage to an individual who by comparison does not. This financial aspect of educational acquirement proves as yet another consideration in the reproductive nature of education.

One who successfully completes the process of educational attainment incurs a significant comparative advantage over a similar individual who does not. Thus the degree to which education reproduces cultural and social norms already present in the underlying society stands to prove a significant factor in the continued propagation of these established norms. With this harsh divide between individuals who do and do not complete the process of formal education, social stratification and inequality between the two groups emerges. This further confirms cultural norms and reproduces the same system upon each successive generation.