Please talk to me about cultural capital...

[breakdown19]

What's important?
This thread has been initiated by the fact that a friend is off to an exhibition today while DH and I are catching up on work (both self employed)
It made me wonder whether we are doing enough for our kids.
NB I have deliberately started this in chat not AIBU as not really looking for a fight.

It’s not just about dealing with fancy situations in life. Without cultural capital, a child has no context in which to apply their learning.

I'm a teacher and for me cultural capital is a knowledge and understanding of a wide range of issues and historical events. A lot of cultural capital is acquired through reading and through sitting down with your children regularly and just chatting.

That article has a shit headline , though, and stoked outrage as a result. In short, don't 'do museums' if all you want is improved GCSE results.

Agree with the poster who said it's the "not for the likes of us" vibe. I grew up with a lot of that and it's hard to shake off. My mother was very full of ideas about not getting above your station, although they did take us to places they were not stately home, opera, ballet, art gallery people. So I didn't go to any of those places until I was an adult.

As i've got older though I have been more open to giving things a go. DD and I saw the Nutcracker ballet pre-pandemic, loved it. Tonight DH and I have tickets to see a production of the opera Carmen. Don't know if I'm going to love it or hate it, but the tickets were £22 each and i'm willing to give it a go.

Yes that is a sense that I have from childhood too. A glass ceiling type approach which I think is also the root cause of my self esteem issues.

That's an interesting article I must admit When I've thought of cultural capital it was simply to enrich the DC lives not to Increase exam grades!

Totally agree dog's.

They can if they read enough and see film's.. but it makes it 3 d to see the treasures from the ejyptian tombs etc.

Some DC are not interested though.
I've got one sponge , avid reader, the other isn't a reader and can barely tolerate anything!
Little bites is the way forward and reading by stealth eg through drama lesson's.

Exposure to art, literature, history, historiographical/philosophical thinking etc expands the mind which can hopefully have good effects and equip us for fulfilling lives.

In the UK our class system has many mechanisms that prevent this and that have themselves given rise to the notion that culture is for other people. It's not of course. If you are a part of society you are part of culture, but centuries of indoctrination is a powerful thing.

In Russia there is a specific insult people use for individuals exhibiting poor behaviour. They will say "you've got no culture". It is the equivalent to the UK/USA insults about people being bums or tacky or not classy or whatever. But it specifically references culture. Soviet Russia for all its faults did have flat access to culture - people may not always have been able to get good vegetables but they could see good ballet for pence. And so even now a Russian person who is uncultured is kind of a degenerate. It's interesting.

Fascinating thread & I found it interesting to see my own personal experience of reading, reading, reading being so central to this.
I truly believe that my love of reading utterly changed my life & lead me away from a life of working in warehouses / factories to having aspirations to attend the top university in my country - which was geographically close but culturally a million miles away from my upbringing.
Yet I did it!
Because my dc have always been enormously privileged & rich in cultural capital they can't actually appreciate the enormity of that achievement.

I think one of the single best things you can do for your children (after loving them & providing a home & food) is read to them daily & discuss what you're reading together.

Interesting to know what it's called. We've always subconsciously done this with DC. I guess because DH & I are interested in a wide range of things, travel a lot, speak other languages, and just always assumed DC would be similar.

We used to have a caravan and DC often brought a friend along. One friend remarked that they always learnt something when they were away with us. Whether it was listening to a podcast on the journey or a discussion about something in the news, a favourite classic book or painting.

A PP said it's about teaching our DC there's a world beyond our bubble. Definitely that.

Can I add something? Fascinating thread and I think the idea of writing a list of experiences you would like your DC to have and working through it is brilliant. So much can be done fee or very cheaply. But I would add sport to the list too. It’s a vital part of the economy and offers huge cultural capital. I’m an oxbridge graduate who worked in the city and I can tell you there were far more business lunches where people talked about sport than opera. So football, athletics, grand prix…whatever.

The key thing is variety and as someone said early on - bring passionate about something. That’s the legacy we give our kids. Mine have theatre and music from me and football from their dad - all equally special and important.

@BonnesVacances We had v similar experience with a friend of our dc. We've travelled a lot with our dc both through mine & dh's work & our own trips. We work in the cultural sector so trips irrespective of whether work or pleasure always involve seeing / attending some thing we're interested in from museum to galleries to historical sites..
We brought a pal along for dd when we went to Gdansk & we planned the days we had there, including a trip to a mall for the young teens they were then. But we also planned to visit The Museum of The Second World War as we're really into history.
I overheard the pal say to dd 'do we really have to go to this ?' As we were waking to it. And dd saying yeah...
The amazing thing was that pal LOVED it once we got in & the 2 of them went ahead & experienced it together with the headset guides we got.
We met them in the cafe once we were all done & we had coffee / cake/ chips / Ice cream etc & we talked about what we each thought of the museum & the immersive displays. And the friend was totally animated & engaged & had loads to say. As we were leaving the museum she said it was the best thing she'd bee jn to & she wished she could always do stuff like that on holidays. Made me simultaneously happy & a little bit sad but also made me t think how lucky our dc are

My parents seemed to have Radio 3 playing on a lot throughout my early years so I grew up listening to classical music. It wasn't so as to introduce me to the music, it was just there for them. Sometimes Wagner at high volume next to my ears at 7.30 am on a school day was a bit much 😄but generally I was so used to classical music and would miss it now if it wasn't on.

Such an interesting thread. Thanks for starting it, op.

Can anyone list the general principles for building on cultural capital please? To include things privileged children may take for granted but may not be something deprived children come across regularly.

The single biggest thing that turned my life around from my very humble beginnings was reading - I read for hours and hours a day and become 'well read' without knowing it from the age of six/ seven, I read everything I could get my hands on and spent every week in the library choosing my week's books, and my knowledge base and education grew despite the rather dreadful school I attended. It grew into a love of current affairs as I got older, global politics and economics and understanding 'how things work' because I was never taken out very much - the inside of my brain, my imagination and my mind just expanded and my individuality and interests were not driven by others.

The second biggest influence was having paints, paper, pencils and time. I was able to refine my own art and become accomplished. I discovered art galleries as I grew older to find inspiration, enjoyed urban and gritty art during my teen years and later the classics. The theatre, opera in Rome, the enchanting ballets and visits to ancient capitals, countries and tribes came later.

In my view cultural capital for children starts with this:

1)Take the screens away
2) Make books a big part of your children's lives - a huge variety from the library
3) Provide paints, pencils, paper and take your children to the countryside, city and river side to find their own inspiration with a picnic and paints in all seasons

The rest will come in due course

Can anyone list the general principles for building on cultural capital please? To include things privileged children may take for granted but may not be something deprived children come across regularly

An ancient classic tour of Italy

My family were quite poor, too many children as there were six of us. I did have a childhood of reading. My parents had both lived overseas in China, Hong Kong and South Africa. My Father had escaped the Japanese in WWII and my Mother had been in South Africa under apartheid. You go in to a grocers when your six and your Mum is explaining to the shop keeper why she won’t buy cape grapes. You remember stuff like that. They both talked extensively about the countries they grew up in plus my Father was very obsessed with fitting in so made sure we knew about English history and culture. He bought The Times and would read bits of it out loud.

DH family were wealthy, his family owned a second house with a few acres and its own woodland. He had horse rising, piano and yachting lessons and a very privileged upbringing. His parents speak multiple European languages though they are English and both DH and his sister speak Spanish, German and Latin. She also speaks Italian. I speak Cantonese and not great French.

Our dc have been taken overseas on holiday a lot, had use till it was sold of the house with all the acres of land. Taken to exhibitions and lectures. There is nothing as great as us disagreeing on a subject, it’s almost a disappointment if we agree immediately.

I think the immediate access to an answer the internet can offer has crushed debate and wonder to an extent.

So we both DH and I had plenty of cultural capital but at opposite ends of the socio economic scale.

I've been thinking about this a lot and my belief is that it's just about exposing your DC to a world beyond their bubble.

It's not just museums and art galleries, or going to the theatre. It's talking about world events, talking about the local elections, eating food from other countries, not just foreign takeaways.

We live in a fairly affluent area but the number of DC's friends who eat food they've never had before when they're at our house surprises me. We're not adventurous by any stretch. I'm just talking fajitas, pancakes with ham and cheese not Nutella, quesadillas.

I've been thinking about this a lot and my belief is that it's just about exposing your DC to a world beyond their bubble.

It's not just museums and art galleries, or going to the theatre. It's talking about world events, talking about the local elections, eating food from other countries, not just foreign takeaways.

We live in a fairly affluent area but the number of DC's friends who eat food they've never had before when they're at our house surprises me. We're not adventurous by any stretch. I'm just talking fajitas, pancakes with ham and cheese not Nutella, quesadillas.

It’s about expanding their world view beyond the immediate. Years ago, one of my DC was identified as having potential in one of the arts, and was put in an outreach programme run by one of the country’s leading arts organisations. The programme was designed to expand the horizons of children in deprived areas - it included free lessons for many years, free trips to the theatre, free workshops, free backstage tours, etc etc. It was a wonderful scheme. But chatting to other parents with children on the scheme, it was shocking to me the number of parents who themselves had never been to central London- bearing in mind we all live in zone 2 London - let alone visited the many free galleries or museums or parks.

Can I please have a top three or five suggestions for starting out on the journey of broadening culture capital in 11 year old boys and 13 year old girls?

Imagine like we are am starting at zero.

1: A museum
2: An art gallery
3: A live theatre show: drama/ dance/opera/musical
4: Greek myths and Bible stories - any good book on these - there are lots of children-centred ones. They are the foundation of much Western art.

One thing I don't think has been mentioned is food... exposing them to range of different cuisines, letting them try new things, trying new things yourselves with them etc.

Sport.. exposure to a range of sports, watching and participating. Including watching womens sports.

Knowing how to behave in different situations, how to talk and how to listen.

Agree with most of this, and “experiences rather than material stuff”, especially. Particularly as they get older.