Cultural Capital

Cultural capital is a concept introduced by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, with Jean-Claude Passeron, to explain how social advantage is transmitted through cultural resources, education, tastes, credentials and ways of speaking and comporting oneself, rather than through wealth alone. Bourdieu distinguished three forms: embodied cultural capital, the internalized dispositions and competencies acquired especially within the family; objectified cultural capital, cultural goods such as books and artworks; and institutionalized cultural capital, formally recognized credentials and qualifications. He argued that cultural and economic capital reinforce one another, so that the conversion of inherited cultural capital into educational credentials, and credentials into higher-paying occupations, is a central mechanism by which social classes reproduce themselves across generations.