Cultural Capital: Reflection 1

Cultural capital is a term that refers to the social and cultural goods that a person has. What is considered a good cultural capital is decided by the values of that society. While cultural capital does not only deal with a person’s wealth it can play a big part in their cultural capital. Gender and family history are other large factors in a person’s cultural capital. In education cultural capital is a large influence in how well someone succeeds.  There are many factors in a person’s life that can help them succeed or fail and these are all considered cultural capital. Although it is something that may not be thought of often cultural capital can strongly influence the education of children throughout their entire lives.

            Cultural capital is a term that sociologist Pierre Bourdieu brought to the forefront. Bourdieu was a sociologist who was particularly interested in the effects of cultural capital and how if affected people, rather than solely economics.

            Gender is a part of cultural capital that plays a very large role. From a young age boys are girls are trained to be better at certain things. Bourdieu talks about this being prominent in early education. He mentions that young girls often succeed more than young boys at first in school. This is because girls are taught to be gentle, calm and docile therefore being open to learning whereas young boys are more rambunctious and have not been trained to learn as well as young girls have been. Bourdieu’s example of cultural capital and gender in this way is often very true. Both of my parents work in elementary schools and the majority of the students that do well in the earlier grades are female, especially in reading and writing. While this is not always the case and there are young male students that do well as well and young girls that may not do as well it is a pattern that is observed year after year.

            Another way in which gender and cultural capital can be seen is in the way that girls are often steered to take arts while boys are more likely to take sciences. While this is something that is not completely visible in grade school because everyone is required to take certain courses it becomes much more obvious in higher levels; like colleges and universities. It is easy to see how the cultural capital of gender effects who takes what classes. One example of how gender cultural capital affects people in this way is by looking at the program one of my friends is currently taking at university. She is currently studying to become an engineer and there are a couple hundred people in the same year and program as she is. Out of these couple hundred students she is one of the few females in the program. There are so few females in her classes she often talks about how she can normally count them on one hand. This is a result of how girls are not normally directed into this kind of field. It requires the use of science and math; subjects that boys are encouraged to succeed in, while girls are often not encouraged to take as often. My friend’s classes show how gender and cultural capital effect and individuals education. Males and females are socially directed to become certain things and to take on certain jobs.

            Cultural capital effects everyday life in many ways. Education is one part of life that can be severely impacted by cultural capital. Gender and cultural capital together can make it difficult for an individual to succeed in certain areas simply because that is the way society has set up the education system.