The Forms Of Capital By Pierre Bourdieu Summary

In his essay “The Forms of Capital,” French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu discusses the accumulation of cultural capital—particular sets of knowledge and skills often based on class and passed down through social institutions like families—and its ability to reinforce class inequality through its reproduction throughout generations (Bourdieu 47). He argues that one’s academic ability is not necessarily determined by biological or intellectual superiority, but rather determined by one’s socioeconomic status. Those with access to leisure time, money, and encouragement from their parents also generally have access to better education opportunities than those of lower socioeconomic status who may not have access to these aforementioned items (Bourdieu …show more content…
Using symbolic boundaries as a form of exclusion, then, creates social boundaries in society, which are differences that are universally accepted in a society, such as gender inferiority, that then lead to inequality (Lamont 168). However, Peterson & Kern’s article “Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore” and Bryson’s article “Anything but Heavy Metal” challenge Bourdieu’s ideas that those with higher education and higher socioeconomic status will look down on so-called lowbrow forms of art, those art forms that are generally enjoyed by people with less education and lower socioeconomic status. Rather than using music to create symbolic and social boundaries by excluding themselves from so-called lowbrow forms of art, Peterson, Kern, and Bryson argue, through their studies, that people with more education are actually becoming less snobbish and more open to all forms of cultural capital, even those that may appear beneath their socioeconomic …show more content…
People who have higher levels of education tend to come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. This statement ties in with cultural capital and the idea that, those who have more access to time, money, and other forms of valuable cultural capital—mainly people from the upper class—are able to pass that cultural capital onto their children and provide them with better education opportunities than those who lack cultural capital—mainly people from lower classes (Bourdieu 48). Therefore, people with higher levels of education, Peterson and Kern argue, are more likely to belong to the upper class. Bryson addresses the theory that high social status is directly correlated to being exclusive and intolerant of other cultures. Combining the theories of these three authors, one can hypothesize that people with higher levels of education are more likely to be exclusive in their tastes and intolerant of the tastes of those with lower levels of education who belong to the lower class, as Bourdieu’s theories suggests (Bryson 885). However, Peterson and Kern’s study suggested otherwise. Analyzing the musical