Cultural Capital

According to Pierre Bourdieu, the theory of cultural capital refers to the socially inherited economic, political, and cultural resources that inform social life and situate groups apart from one another. Ideologies and material benefits related to power, privilege, and education are tied up in the possession of these assets, which are not equally distributed among all members of a society. This capital and its allocation are connected to social locations like race, class, and gender. Those most endowed with socially valued and high cultural resources like travel, art, and financial investments represent the most powerful societal classes; thus the cultural capital of the rich, in this definition, holds more value than the cultural capital of the poor.

Educators have been concerned with cultural capital because academic ...