Acquisition Of Cultural Capital Research Articles

The value of the serious leisure perspective in understanding cultural capital embodiment in festival settings

Festivals have been conceptualised as serious leisure activities as well as arenas for cultural capital acquisition and embodiment. However, there is still theoretical confusion surrounding the process of cultural embodiment, especially in leisure practices. This article suggests that the serious leisure perspective, in combination with cultural capital ideas, offers a means of deepening understanding of how cultural capital can be embodied in festival settings. To make its arguments, the article draws on qualitative data collected at two long-established literary festivals, one in Ireland and one in Italy. Observations and interviews with festival participants were used to develop an understanding of participants’ cultural capital embodiment. The article suggests that the serious leisure perspective is a valuable theory to throw light on three elements of cultural embodiment at festivals: (1) body; (2) pre-existing cultural resources; (3) time. Interlinking serious leisure with cultural capital leads to an in-depth analysis of how culture is embodied during festivals. This article demonstrates the value of using serious leisure and the embodied state of cultural capital ideas in tandem to further understand cultural embodiment in festivals. The study concludes by suggesting potential future studies and areas of research.

Habitus Adaptation and First-Generation University Students’ Adjustment to Higher Education: A Life Course Perspective

In recent years, research has brought attention to the heterogeneity of resources that first-generation students bring with them to higher education and the factors that assist in these students’ social and academic adjustment to university life. However, few studies have focused on how these students’ early socialization and experiences over the life course influence their adjustment experiences to university. Drawing on Bourdieu’s habitus concept to explore the life histories of first-generation students at a midranked Swedish university, we identify three types of adjustment profiles—Adjusters, Strangers, and Outsiders—and highlight five key factors over the life course that explain why they differ: family resources, early social environment, educational experiences and opportunities, peers, and partners. Our findings suggest that class-related adjustment challenges in college can be traced to different levels of cultural capital acquired during first-generation students’ early socialization but also to capital acquired through sustained contact with cultural capital–abundant social environments throughout their life course, resulting in subtle but consequential habitus adaptations. This study extends previous research in the field by exploring a broader set of social contexts that can spur first-generation students’ cultural capital acquisition before college and facilitate their adjustment to higher education.

A life course perspective on cultural capital acquisition: How the timing and duration of musical socialization affect the taste for classical music and opera✰

We analyze survey data on liking to listen to and attendance at classical music concerts and opera, as well as music lessons at different points in the life course, to advance our understanding of cultural capital acquisition. We assess a series of hypotheses based on insights from Bourdieu's perspective on habitus formation and on insights from a life course perspective. By drawing on a life course perspective, we are able to specify how adult highbrow music tastes might be influenced by the timing and duration of musical socialization after childhood. Moreover, we assess how these influences are mediated by achieved SES in adulthood. Using data from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (N=4925), we find that adult highbrow music tastes are influenced by the timing and duration of musical socialization, including during adolescence and early adulthood. We argue that this finding supports an important complement to a Bourdieusian perspective and that a life course perspective offers greater specificity and explanatory power than a perspective that heavily weights childhood experiences. A key implication of our findings is that cultural capital scholarship should broaden its undue focus on early childhood experiences of esthetic socialization.

Investing the Time: Group Differences in Cultural Capital Development Among U.S. Adolescents

This study examines the extent of class and racial inequalities in cultural capital development among recent adolescent cohorts in the United States. Informed by several decades of cultural capital research, I compare participation in four dimensions of cultural capital proposed by prior scholarship—highbrow consumption, omnivorous consumption, technical capacity, and social competence—by using nationally representative time-diary data to test for group differences in time-use patterns. Time investment has been long theorized but seldom tested as the means through which individuals develop cultural capital. Activities associated with technical capacity appear to have the greatest potential as the bases for both class and racial exclusions, as group differences are evident in both the prevalence and duration of participation. Smaller race and class differences are evident for omnivorous consumption, and low participation in highbrow activities is evident across all groups. Distinct patterns of time-use among Asian American adolescents suggest they are simultaneously advantaged and disadvantaged in their cultural capital acquisition, speaking to debates regarding their relative status in the United States.

"Healthier Than Just Healthy": Families Transmitting Health as Cultural Capital.

As the relationship between social class and health strengthens and socioeconomic and health inequalities widen, understanding how parents' socioeconomic advantage translates into health and class advantages in the next generation is increasingly important. Our analyses illustrate how a classed performance of "health" is a fundamental component of transmitting cultural capital in families and communities. Socially advantaged parents' health and class goals for children are often met simultaneously by building children's cultural capital in community-specific ways. This study uses observational, interview, and focus group data from families in two middle-class communities to illustrate how health-focused cultural capital acquisition plays out in everyday life. As parents manage children's lives to ensure future advantages, they often focus on health-related behaviors and performances as symbols of class-based distinction for their children. The synergy between family and community cultural capital is strengthening class and health advantages for some children, even as health-focused cultural capital often has drawbacks for stress and well-being. The intensification of and value placed on "health" in cultural capital may have long-term implications for health, socioeconomic attainment, and inequalities. If health-focused cultural capital continues to become increasingly salient for status attainment, its importance could grow, widening these gaps and reducing intergenerational mobility.

“You’re sitting on a hot soccer field drinking Gatorade…I’m sitting in a yacht club just enjoying the view, enjoying the drinks”: Parental reproduction of social class through school sport sailing

This paper examines the utilisation of light sailing within school sport programmes in Western France and California. Sailing has been identified as a key activity for upper class participation in both France and the USA because it heavily involves intellectual skills, including preparation, tactical decision making, leadership and problem solving. Following on from this, we develop the social class concepts of Pierre Bourdieu (1979) to demonstrate how cultural and economic capitals are sought after and reproduced in comparative school sailing environments to maintain upper class social values and positions. We highlight interview commentary and field observations from a 1.5-year comparative ethnographic study of youth sailors and supporting adults, including coaches, teachers and parents. Our findings indicate that Western French and Californian upper class student sailors and their adult supporters are differentiated from each other in terms of how they prioritise either economic or cultural capital acquisition. This finding aligns with Bourdieusian conceptual distinctions of culturally dominant class and economically dominant class values and membership. Upper class status reinforcement and capital reproduction in these divergent ways reflects distinctive national cultures as well as social and economic structures underpinning youth/school sport and educational participation.

Niektóre uwarunkowania aktywności edukacyjnej dorosłych

<p>Obserwowany od lat niski wskaźnik aktywności edukacyjnej dorosłych skłania do podjęcia refleksji nad przyczynami tego zjawiska – postawienia diagnozy, która mogłaby stać się kanwą działań zmierzających do likwidacji tych przyczyn. W artykule skoncentrowano się na próbie ukazania uwarunkowań aktywności edukacyjnej dorosłych. Uznano, że znaczącą rolę odgrywają tu dwa rodzaje czynników: (1) związane z poczuciem bezpieczeństwa: osobistego, pracy czy edukacyjnego oraz (2) związane z kapitałem kulturowym jednostki. Poczucie bezpieczeństwa identyfikowane jest przez pryzmat stanu środowiska bezpieczeństwa, statusu i sytuacji społecznej oraz kompetencji jednostki i poczucia kontroli na własnym życiem i losem, a także osobowości dorosłego. Stan środowiska bezpieczeństwa został ukazany w perspektywie społecznej poprzez powiększającą się strefę ubóstwa, rozwarstwienie i polaryzację społeczną, marginalizację i wykluczenie społeczne oraz dyskryminacyjne formy zatrudnienia, naruszające prawa pracownicze i malejący przyrost naturalny, zmuszający pracowników do przedłużania okresu zatrudnienia, szczególnie w sytuacji coraz większej niewydolności systemu zabezpieczeń społecznych. Zaproponowano spojrzenie na aktywność edukacyjną dorosłych przez pryzmat dominacji potrzeb rynku pracy, ale także wydłużającego się życia Polek i Polaków. Natomiast znaczenie kapitału kulturowego przejawia się w stratyfikacji społecznej: w społeczeństwach postkomunistycznych nabywanie kapitału kulturowego jest bowiem postrzegane jako droga do awansu społecznego, ponieważ o stratyfikacji społecznej nie decyduje zarówno odziedziczony kapitał ucieleśniony (inkorporowany), jak i uprzedmiotowiony (zobiektywizowany). W tej sytuacji największe znaczenie ma kapitał zinstytucjonalizowany, głównie w postaci sformalizowanego wykształcenia, potwierdzonego dyplomami uczelni. Ukształtowana w PRL ścieżka awansu, osadzona w wykształceniu, opierała się na antynomii: praca fizyczna versus praca umysłowa, z których to ta druga nobilitowała. Zdobycie wykształcenia, najlepiej wyższego, było substytutem nobilitacji opartej na tzw. starych pieniądzach czy budowanej przez pokolenia pozycji zawodowej.</p>

Cultural capital, habitus and reading futures: middle-class adolescent students’ cultivation of reading dispositions in Singapore

The acquisition of cultural capital can only be understood in the light of the formation of habitus, including the socialisation process, and in the context of the field in which any such capital has value. Yet, the relation between cultural capital and habitus is seldom discussed in research. Drawing on the data from focus groups with 96 students and a survey of 5,779 students from six Singapore secondary schools, we analyze how reading as a form of cultural capital is distributed among High-SES, Mid-SES and Low-SES students in Singapore. We show how middle-class practices of intensive immersion in school-valued reading practices is a form of habitus that prepare some students better than others for engaged reading. The findings highlight how reading as a form of cultural capital is operationalized through students’ familial habitus and argues that making visible familial habitus provides insights for transforming institutional habitus for students’ reading futures.

‘You’re in the basement of this grand house…:’ habitus reformation and elite cultural capital acquisition among women of color

ABSTRACT This study explores habitus (re)formation and elite cultural capital acquisition among 37 lower to middle-income women of color who accessed a high-income, predominantly white suburban public high school through one of three ways: as residents, as commuters, or as boarders, with the latter groups gaining access through two voluntary racial desegregation programs. The in-depth interviews reveal that women in all three groups discuss exposure to and comfort in diverse settings, but commuters and boarders are more likely to discuss habitus (re)formation than are residents. Women in all three groups discuss gaining dominant cultural capital in the form of speech and self-presentation skills, at times explicitly discussing the racialized nature of such forms of cultural capital. Commuters and boarders also discuss acquiring academic knowledge and travel opportunities, while residents and commuters discuss institutionalized cultural capital in the form of a diploma or a driver’s license with an elite town name.

Learning of Teaching in the Professional Socialization in Physical Education

Abstract AIMS to investigate how the professional socialization happens through teacher education. METHODS a qualitative research, descriptive, was developed using exploratory interview and narrative interview to clarify and deepen the collected information. Two Physical Education teachers with different stories of personal and professional development participated in this study. Through content analysis the data was organized in themes: the cultural capital and the learning of teaching, as a social, spatial and temporal process; a cognitive, plural and heterogenic process and a human, moral and relational process. RESULTS life settings can be viewed as the building scaffoldings of a professional socialization with the aim of understanding teachers and their practices in the knowledge of their lives, as influenced by social interactions. In this process of successive socializations, teachers build their professional identity, valuing social interactions in the environments they inhabit. In this study, practice was viewed as a site for training, the production of knowledge, and professional socialization in the acquisition of cultural capital. The knowledge of teachers was conceived as having a social nature, bringing underlying sources of acquisition associated with the family, school, and university because they decisively contribute to the structure of the educational practice. CONCLUSION the professional socialization is a dynamic process which involves not only the learning, but the acquisition of a professional ethos and, mainly, a teacher's identity and a base of knowledge that support the social interaction and the teaching culture in the activities and individual socialization in the habitus perspective.

GHOSTLY LABOR: ETHNIC CLASSISM IN THE LEVANTINE PRISM OF JACQUELINE KAHANOFF'SJACOB'S LADDER

AbstractIn her writings, the Egyptian-born Israeli author Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff advocated Levantine cosmopolitanism, which she dubbed Levantinism, as a unique cultural model particular to the Eastern Mediterranean. Through an analysis of Kahanoff's novelJacob's Ladder(1951), this article questions the nostalgic image often associated with Egyptian cosmopolitanism. I argue that this text provides rare insight into the process through which Levantine culture developed amid several competing imperial and nationalist projects. In particular, I show how the novel's depiction of Levantine spaces documents the marginalized role of the working class in the education of elite Levantine society and its acquisition of cultural capital. My analysis also explores how the construction and sustenance of a celebrated image of the Levantine past depended on the racialization of labor, or what I call “ethnic classism.” Through this latter process, a labor force made up of other cosmopolitan subjects was Orientalized and relegated to the background where it served to highlight a European-like Levantine cosmopolitanism.

Person First, Student Second: Staff and Administrators of Color Supporting Students of Color Authentically in Higher Education

In this qualitative study I explored the mentoring roles of staff and administrators for first-generation Black, Latinx, and Biracial students. Social reproduction theory (which assesses how inequality is perpetuated or disrupted generationally) was used to analyze social capital cultivated by mentors. Staff of Color nurtured the capital that students brought with them to college, and because of this students often turned to the staff for other forms of support, which opened the door for acquisition of cultural capital. White staff focused almost exclusively on students’ academic experiences, neglecting their backgrounds. Supporting students holistically and valuing their backgrounds establish authentic relationships that support students’ success.

Study tours and the diversification of cultural capital acquisition

Purpose This paper aims to provide evidence on the role study tours play in expanding student cultural capital via increased confidence in international travel. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, survey data from individuals who participated in a study tour experience offered by a Florida-based university are analyzed for the assessment of cultural capital acquisition across select demographic types. Results are derived for paired difference tests as well as differences in population means. Findings Findings indicate that students participating in study tours did, in fact, gain confidence in engaging in international travel, especially so for first-time passport users and female participants. Research limitations/implications The study was limited because of the size of the sample population. It is likely that significant relationships via other demographic cohorts will unfold as program participation increases. Practical implications Study tours represent a viable pathway for the acquisition of cultural capital. Social implications Study tours present a unique means of providing students a first-hand global experience, and when marketed to a non-traditional student population, offer opportunities for acquisition of cultural and social capital that could not be achieved through non-experiential means. Originality/value The results of this study show that the study tour experience enriched the cultural capital of student participants through an increase in confidence associated with traveling abroad. The benefits of the study tour were widespread, as virtually, all population groups analyzed tended to gain confidence in traveling abroad, even those who had prior experience traveling internationally. This paper also suggests future pathways for research based on other demographic cohorts.

Creating Cultural Consumers

The theories of cultural reproduction and cultural mobility have largely shaped the study of the effects of cultural capital on academic outcomes. Missing in this debate has been a rigorous examination of how children actually acquire cultural capital when it is not provided by their families. Drawing on data from a large-scale experimental study of schools participating in an art museum’s educational program, we show that students’ exposure to a cultural institution has the effect of creating ‘‘cultural consumers’’ motivated to acquire new cultural capital. We find that the experience has the strongest impact on students from more disadvantaged backgrounds. As such, our analysis reveals important aspects about the nature of cultural capital acquisition. To the extent that the evidence supporting cultural mobility is accurate, it may be because disadvantaged children can be activated to acquire cultural capital, thus compensating for family background characteristics and changing their habitus.

Tasting but not Tasting: MasterChef Australia and Vicarious Consumption

This article explores how people “taste” food media in order to develop cultural taste. It examines the vicarious consumption practices of three households of the popular reality television talent quest, MasterChef Australia (MCA). Vicarious consumption is the enjoyment of something, in this case gourmet food, through a third party (Veblen). The paper argues that the audience’s use of vicarious consumption is an empowering practice. As such, the article challenges Veblen’s negative view of vicarious consumption – the sentiment of which continues to underpin contemporary reality television and food media discourse (see Rousseau). Furthermore, this article expands upon Adema’s exploration of the practice in relation to food television in which she highlights that households gain more pleasure from watching food television rather than cooking and eating. Each audience member engaged in vicarious consumption and used MCA in conjunction with other food media for different reasons. For instance, one viewer used vicarious consumption to control her food intake, while another gained nostalgic pleasure from food media. These approaches to vicarious consumption allow the MCA viewers to negotiate conflicting discourses of cultural taste to construct a positive identity for themselves as "everyday foodies." "Everyday foodies" are individuals who embrace and incorporate an appreciation of gourmet food culture into their busy lifestyles, but are limited by time, money, health or confidence.

¿Qué leen los profesores de la Universidad de Sonora? Un estudio sobre la lectura como práctica cultural

This article derives from the results of the research performed to describe the cultural dispositions of professors based on the classification concepts of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory. Thus, it addresses specifically the reflection on what professors read, as a determining factor for the acquisition of cultural capital. Full time professors of the Sonora University were interviewed with a qualitative focus. Said professors are considered as the main subjects in the restructuring of cultural dispositions of university agents, in order to know their leaning / likings towards reading as one of the essential aspects that shape the habitus of individuals in the educational field.