Cultural capital is only for the wealthy...

[Explodingatomickittens]

I feel that the kids who are really gaining cultural (& on another level social capital) are from wealthy families. I know people will reply that there's lots of free events on all over the UK daily. In my experience these spots are always nabbed by the mc also. Due to covid & cost of living crisis the gap is widening between tremendously between the haves & the have nots. It's very sad.

This thread is about Culture. Culture is long lasting or permanent. It is about quality
It Is Not about Social Climbing, or blagging that you are rich.

You can scoff at radio 4 and library books but with a 6th former looking to interview well at universities those are pretty valuable!

if you see cultural capital as getting in with a posh set - I really wouldn’t bother - the real
aristos are never going to let your kids in no matter how many ski hols you go on😀. Unless they are very pretty and even then…

When you're worrying about every penny and you're cold, the last thing you're thinking about is museums and Opera, even if everything involved in such trips is free.

Libraries, are they becoming rarer in some places?

I used to live a short bus ride to the Southbank Centre and all the free classical music events, free book readings and free orchestra workshops were swamped by MC parents who grew up in Home Counties and settled in London for their fancy jobs. Horniman Museum used to attract mostly MC families (free or member events) but it's been a mix of socio-economics since the last 5 years maybe.

My point is that the relationship between cultural capital and social mobility is inevitably one of snobbery. I am not bad looking mind 😁

Libraries babies and toddlers sessions in fancier areas tend to attract the nannies, in mixed areas mums on mat leave or part timers.

Well you can sneer at popular sources of free culture and try to devalue them whilst complaining about the cost of the dress circle at Covent garden, or you can grab at whatever is available for your kids to benefit.

Luckily for me my parents did the latter since the sources you belittle gave me a great deal, sitting atop a career ladder overwhelmingly populated by public schoolboys.

Cultural capital isn't a commodity you pay for and rack up like stickers on a chart.

Its part of the wallpaper of a family's life.

It's transmitting what you know and what you're interested in to your children, whether that's pigeons, whippets, dressage, stock car racing, expressionist art, stamp collecting, allotment gardening, metal detecting, historical biographies, cathedral architecture...

For whoever mentioned the cost and effort of getting to theatre in London (even if the actual tickets are cheap) - you can enjoy a full month watching as many plays as you want, streamed via

National Theatre at Home

for £9.99.

Admittedly not free, and of course you need an internet device, but it’s an easy way of accessing theatre, especially in Winter. (I’ve given people a year or six months for Christmas / birthdays.)

On the wider point, experience suggests that all the culture in the world is wasted if an impecunious person doesn’t at some point stumble upon (and use) some actual capital. Scholarships, bursaries, travel grants, long term support into a profession … In addition to being well read, you really need to know how to navigate the systems that make the best of life possible for a select few.

Agree with @TheaBrandt

It is, but when i looked it up it included an element of social mobility. So i think its just culture if its pigeons, whippets and teaspoon playing, but capital if that has currency in the job market or accessing justices, or navigating public life? So if all the graduate recruitment schemes want evidence of hobbies, and your hobby is one recruiters value and chat about it becomes capital. I am sure some recruiters are better at seeing quilt making, skiing, orchestra playing, bird spotting and keeping ferrets as the same but others might not and snobbery does come into it.

I think.

This is a very valid point.

@thecatsthecats

I can't shake off the image of Blake in Arsenal kit kicking off the poem now

Agree with your comment.

So much of written culture as taught in schools - the canon of the literature curriculum - requires a background of language and even a basic vocabulary that many children lack. I'd place familiarity with the KJV alongside the Geeek myths as a foundation for future forays into literature.

I recall studying Huckleberry Finn for English in the Irish Inter Cert in 1980, way before Wikipedia amd YouTube - and being baffled about the dialogue, the terrain, the technical terms related to plying the Mississippi. After I moved to the US and became familiar with the language, and saw the scenes described for myself - Hannibal, Cairo, etc - it all became so much clearer. I re-read the book and enjoyed it greatly.

@Spendonsend

I don't see it as a layer of polish on top of an inadequate underlay.

I see the basic intelligence and the confidence that gets you to the point of graduate recruitment as the elements that would shine through, as long as the candidate hasn't been brought up to feel that their home environment is unworthy, 'less than', or in some way lacking.

I don't see a hierarchy to the elements of culture I listed in no particular order. Anyone who has interest and knowledge in any given area and the confidence to chat about it, regardless of what it was, would pass my interview, as long as they demonstrated attention to grammar, and savoir-faire or personal charisma, which don't come from what you've acquired but from your own personality, your belief in yourself. These qualities are not the exclusive preserve of people with a certain accent or the external trappings of a certain social class.

Cultural capital is a trading mechanism - it is knowledge capital - to signal admission for entry into a group. Among small bus it's skills and knowledges around football and computer games.

But cultural capitalism as a tool to enable social mobility is amassing enough of the right knowledge 'capital' to access otherwise closed doors related to class and finance.

Providing your children with the opportunity to new interests, hobbies and experiences can exist outside of its usefulness as capital. And, here trips to the cinema and bowling aren't considered a waste and trips to the theatre and museums aren't revered as a social leg-up.

Bus= boys

This is a fantastic explanation!

Radio 4 and library books ( along with free museums and local history) got me into a good course in a good university.
My dc have the ski trips and fancy school.
Don't knock this stuff it works.

I dont see it as a layer of polish either? I looked it up and it was really wide ranging and includedceducation, qualifications etc. I think people have focused on the culture not the capital and i dont think all culture is seen equally by some old fashioned recruiters. Its great you would be more interested in the fact they can talk about their hobby than what it is - but I still think a lot of recruiters have a certain type of culture they are looking for.

I agree with this.

We had a parish council meeting where a number of passionate families asked for more free local cultural events.

Our local youth centre ran a whole array of events that were free, well advertised and being in the rec centre was walking distance to the local three large estates. It was a fantastic set of events, really exciting and diverse so it was rather disappointing to see that only the MC families attended.

When we polled the local families who had requested the events they were just to exhausted by the daily grind to make time to attend. It was just another thing to juggle in a full on day.

I think this shows that there is a desire and understanding that these events are needed, but that life does get in the way when you are living very close to the bone.

What sort of culture capital are you specifically thinking about?

If you live far away from an urban centre you are going to struggle with access no matter how much cash you have. We are all aware cash helps a lot.

But, radio is free, radio 4 have loads of programmes on culture, introducing the general listener to quite niche art forms. A snooker final was on normal TV last night, world cup football last month, tennis and cricket in the summer.

There are usually local football (small teams) games almost across the country that don't break the bank and have great deals on kids tickets.

We can afford a big event once in a while, I suggested, to expand their tiny minds instead of panto next year perhaps we should go to see the Nutcracker in London instead, as it will cost, oh more than my car no doubt, I wanted full enthusiasm, I was met with a wall of horrified faces.

If you read interviews with modern culture creators you might be surprised how few were given piano lessons and opera tickets as a child.

You can find art and culture free in many many places, the wonderful world wide web can mean you can view or listen or watch almost any artist, musician, poetry ever created or study a movement or historical architecture without ever leaving your house. It is a great leveller. Kids with no access to agents can put out band music or spoken word direct and if they are good they will be liked.

You can take 1000s of photos on phones (photography used to be so expensive to develop), someone made a film on an iPhone a while back.

No perhaps you can't buy a bassoon.
Or go to the Albert Hall.

But I also think you can't blame a cultural desert for children nowadays on others who have more money.

Lots of libraries are selling themselves as 'warm spaces' at the moment. I used to take myself to the Library when I was in Junior school and walk home after. No parental involvement or expense necessary.

A friend's large local library boarded up and closed a couple of years ago. Opened up in the small shopping precinct. Tiny space, few books, non existent events (there's no room) and only a couple of computers, not to mention cold, as in an open shopping place, and restricted opening hours. No later night openings. They may as well have closed completely. Hardly anyone uses what's left. It's a disgrace. The empty building still stands idle.

I agrée OP, but I think geography comes into it a lot. I grew up in a council house, and live in one now, but I always thought that Londoners in a similar financial situation to mine have endless access to brilliant things to do like free/cheap museums, theatre, etc.

I live in a small Midlands town, can’t afford to drive. We’ve no museum or theatre closer than an hour away, and with public transport costs what they are just transport costs a good £20+ for our family of four.