Religion and cultural capital in the UK today: identity, cultural engagement and the prevalence of multiple religious identities

Abstract

ABSTRACT Scholarship on social class occupies a particular pedestal in British sociology. However, recent research into the connections between religion and social position is conspicuously absent. Using a UK-wide survey, I employ Bourdieu and various statistical methods to investigate the complex cultural capital compositions of various religious identities. The findings identify a four-group typology of cultural engagement. I also identify those holding multiple religious identities as a new and prominent religious identity in the UK today, one that is highly culturally active. I explain these results through neo-Bourdieusian theories of the reconfiguration of distinction in the forms of openness and cosmopolitanism, and through arguments for the importance of cultural and social variety in accumulating capital. The unique group that has these multiple religious identities is also a prime candidate for further research into how religious dispositions may operate as its own form of cultural capital.