Children's conversion of cultural capital into educational success

the symbolic and skill-generating functions of cultural capital

authored by

Karoline Mikus, Nicole Tieben, Pia S. Schober

Abstract

A prominent explanation of intergenerational educational inequality is Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory. Indeed, previous studies have frequently shown that children’s cultural capital relates to academic outcomes. However, it remains unclear how children convert their cultural capital into achievement. While Bourdieu argued that cultural capital influences academic outcomes primarily by biasing teachers’ grades, other researchers have proposed the alternative explanation that children’s cultural capital absorption directly translates into academic skills. Using survey data on 2975 fifth graders from the German National Educational Panel Study, we disentangle these two mechanisms of children’s cultural capital conversion; and argue that the main conversion mechanism depends on the cultural capital dimension examined. The results of our structural equation model suggest that both mechanisms are at work and that the main conversion mechanism depends on the dimension of cultural capital examined.

External Organisation(s)

University of Tübingen

Type

Article

Journal

British journal of sociology of education

Volume

41

Pages

197-217

No. of pages

21

ISSN

0142-5692

Publication date

2020

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Education, Sociology and Political Science

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 4 - Quality Education

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2019.1677454 (Access: Closed)