Cultural Capital

• Bourdieu identified 2 further types of influence on pupil achievement, including educational capital and cultural capital
• Middle class people generally possess more of all 3 types of capital which is why they are more successful than the working class
• Cultural capital is the attitudes, values and knowledge that allow for success, the middle classes values are inline with schools values
• Educational capital is the qualifications brought through success in school for the middle class
• Economic capital is the monetary wealth that is gained due to having educational capital for the middle class
• Cultural capital impacts on educational capital which impacts on economic capital
• Sullivan supports Bourdieu
• Sullivan questionnaire survey of 465 pupils that were asked from a range of activities, and whose vocab was assessed to check for cultural capital, showed those with high cultural capital tend to be children of university graduates
• Sullivan concludes that the greater recourses and aspirations of middle class families explain the class gap in acheivement