Sociology Questions DQ5

Elaine Hayes on

"The Forms of Capital"

In the "Forms of Capital" Bourdieu expands the notion of capital beyond its economic

conception which emphasizes material exchanges, to include "immaterial" and "non-

economic" forms of capital, specifically cultural and symbolic capital. He explains

how the different types of capital can be acquired, exchanged, and converted into

other forms. Because the structure and distribution of capital also represent the

inherent structure of the social world, Bourdieu argues that an understanding of the

multiple forms of capital will help elucidate the structure and functioning of the social

world.

The term cultural capital represents the collection of non-economic forces such as

family background, social class, varying investments in and commitments to

education, different resources, etc. which influence academic success. Bourdieu

distinguishes three forms of cultural capital. The embodied state is directly linked to

and incorporated within the individual and represents what they know and can do.

Embodied capital can be increased by investing time into self improvement in the

form of learning. As embodied capital becomes integrated into the individual, it

becomes a type of habitus and therefore cannot be transmitted instantaneously. The

objectified state of cultural capital is represented by cultural goods, material objects

such as books, paintings, instruments, or machines. They can be appropriated both

materially with economic capital and symbolically via embodied capital. Finally,

cultural capital in its institutionalized state provides academic credentials and

qualifications which create a "certificate of cultural competence which confers on its

holder a conventional, constant, legally guaranteed value with respect to power."

(248) These academic qualifications can then be used as a rate of conversion between

cultural and economic capital.

Throughout his discussion of cultural capital, Bourdieu favors a nurture rather than a

nature argument. He states that the ability and talent of an individual is primarily

determined by the time and cultural capital invested in them by their parents.

Similarly, Bourdieu argues that "the scholastic yield from educational action depends

on the cultural capital previously invested by the family" (244) and "the initial

accumulation of cultural capital, the precondition for the fast, easy accumulation of

every kind of useful cultural capital, starts at the outset, without delay, without wasted

time, only for the offspring of families endowed with strong cultural capital." (246)

Based upon these assertions, it appears that cultural capital regulates and reproduces

itself in a similar fashion as habitus. According to this model, families of a given

cultural capital could only produce offspring with an equal amount of cultural capital.

This approach strikes me as too inflexible. How does Bourdieu account for those

individuals who elevate their social status or increase their cultural capital from what

they inherited. I am probably reading Bourdieu too literally and missing his point, but

I still do not understand how a given group with a specified cultural capital, such as

the "New Class," could increase in size if, as Bourdieu claims, it simply regenerates

itself.

Bourdieu defines social capital as, "the aggregate of the actual or potential resources

which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized

relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition." (248) An individual's social

capital is determined by the size or their relationship network, the sum of its

cumulated resources (both cultural and economic), and how successfully (quickly) the

individual can set them it in motion. According to Bourdieu, social networks must be

continuously maintained and fostered over time in order for them to be called upon

quickly in the future.

Finally, in his discussion of conversions between different types of capital, Bourdieu

recognizes that all types of capital can be derived from economic capital through

varying efforts of transformation. Bourdieu also states that cultural and social capital

are fundamentally rooted in economic capital but they can never be completely

reduced to an economic form. Rather, social and cultural capital remain effective

because they conceal their relationship to economic capital.