It's not all education: Network measures as sources of cultural competency

Abstract

This paper examines attitudes towards eighteen music genres using data from the 1993 General Social Survey. It assesses the role of education, network complexity, and geographic mobility for predicting the breadth of musical preferences individuals claim to possess. Respondent's level of education plays a significant role, especially for the respondent's liking of ‘elite’ music. The role of education, however, diminishes when the network and geographic mobility variables are added to the model, suggesting that musical liking is learned through both formal and less formal channels. Both an individual's geographical mobility, as well as the number of organizations to which she or he claim membership, prove significant predictors of higher levels of musical liking. These two variables, moreover, remain positively related to level of liking for both ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ musical forms. Education, however, was negatively related to liking ‘popular’ music genres suggesting that the geographic mobility and network variables, rather than educational status measures, may form the basis for musical consumption across a wider spectrum of genres. Thus, although highly educated persons did like more types of music than their less educated counterparts, this difference was restricted to a narrower range of more ‘elite’ genres.