Pierre Bourdieu's Cultural Capital

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It has been argued that the theory of ‘cultural capital’ explains why students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds are less represented in universities, and differently represented in different subjects.

This essay will be exploring the concept of ‘cultural capital’, a key concept in Pierre Bourdieu
(1930-2002) social theories, and asking the question, does an individuals ‘cultural capital’ combined with their low socioeconomic status impact on their decision to attend university? Also, how do other
Environmental and biological influences impact on an individuals decision to enter or not to enter university and what field to study is undertaken.
Bourdieu’s concept of ‘cultural capital’ looks beyond economic status incorporating …show more content…

‘Teaching extends beyond technique, respecting students as individuals who have diverse backgrounds, different learning needs, and a variety of valuable prior experiences. By facilitating learning for inclusion, individual strengths and differences are acknowledged, fostered and maximize to enrich the student’s own potential, knowledge, skills and understanding as well as that of others within the learning community. Such an approach is intentionally and thoroughly integrated into every part of an institution and implemented rigorously, vigorously and thoughtfully’. (Devlin, M. and McKay, J. 2011) (Adapted from Griffiths, 2010).

There seems to be very little research (except statistical) into why LSES students have higher enrollments in education, health, nursing and lower in the ‘sciences’ compared to middle to high SES.
A suggestion for discussion could be that cultural and economic capital plays a major role in conjunction with parental education, expectations and social reproduction. It could be argued

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