Cultural Capital - what do you do in your household?

[californiagurl]

We have a huge range of books, frequent theatre visits (although these have been online in recent times), visits to art galleries/exhibitions, support with learning languages.

What's anyone else up to?

Define ‘culture’?

But who decides what is middle class or not? surely people would not all have the same opinion on what each class is allowed to enjoy or not

Exactly, depending on what metric you use, you could assess me as just about any class and different people would come to different conclusions, and then make assumptions about me based on their assessment that bear little resemblance to me as a person.

I think you ave a very superficial understanding of Bourdieu.....

I'll read a book or maybe two or three,
I'll add a few new paintings to my gallery,
I'll play guitar and knit and cook and basically just wonder when will my life begin?
Then after lunch it's puzzles and darts and baking, paper mache, a bit of ballet and chess, pottery and ventriloquy, candle making, then I'll stretch, maybe sketch, take a climb, sew a dress!
And I'll reread the books, if I have time to spare, I'll paint the walls some more
I'm sure there's room somewhere
And then I'll brush and brush
And brush and brush my hair

Rather than look at child rearing I would look at adults and ask the question "who do I know who has the most cultural capital"? It is the people who can mix with everyone across class, race, religion and nationality. It tends to be someone who has travelled widely and is in the arts or a journalist or diplomatic services or tri-national or it can be someone local to you who has never worked but assimilated into a different country/class or even town/village and sees life a certain way due to richness of experience and knowledge and openness and the ability to listen to others. With access to the internet an individual can now acquire a huge amount of cultural capital without being born into privilege if he or she is so inclined. It is about richness of experience and actually breaking free from your own background as far as I am concerned. It is most definitely not about staying stuck in your own narrow middle class ways. If you look at the international elite who send their children to school and university abroad, therein lies the reason. Own of my own DC's reception teacher was always pointing out the cultural capital of the DC in her class and there was lots of write up your holiday and weekend experiences to share with others and bring in food from your own country etc on international day and observe traditions from the school community/celebrate the different languages spoken/arts/music etc.

@Stripesgalore

‘People taking the piss out of op calling it cultural capital, that's what it's commonly referred to in the cultural sector.‘

But we’re not in the cultural sector; we’re on an internet message board.

Fair enough. I'm just saying it's not like she made it up.

@Ihatefish yy this is true.

And actually always has been: it's literally what the song 'Lady Is A Tramp' is about, and that was written in the 1930s. (See, my cultural capital is showing. )

@seayork2020 if you say there's no such thing as class and that you can't be pigeonholed into one, you're middle class. I don't make the rules!

I’m going to answer this without sarcasm, because although the term cultural capital has irritated everyone, we all do consciously (or subconsciously of course if you are just naturally highly cultured which I think is a subtext of some of the comments on here- it’s too try hard to do it consciously) try to introduce our children to culture.
We went to Paris for a couple of days on our way to our holiday and the kids refused to go inside any galleries.
Ditto Venice when we stayed on a eurocamp site there.
Same in London.
I once bought a kids’ Shakespeare story set to read in the car. It was ok at the start but we didn’t finish it.

Neither of them have read a book out of school for quite a while.
They’ve had music lessons but quit. Ds has done dance for 10years. He and dh went to watch male swan lake.
Dd loves art and dh is an artist so we occasionally mention influences but if too much enthusiasm is shown it’s gone too far.
Erm both teens have been to a little mix concert?
The sad truth is the teenaged kids seem to have an intolerance of anything remotely ‘cultural’ but I’m hoping the few pennies we’ve deposited will help in them developing wider interests in the future.

Interesting to see members of a mostly middle class site pretend this stuff doesn't matter and that they don't think about it

Well, as I have to work for a living, I define myself as working class. However, I suppose others would define me as middle class as I went to uni and work in a professional role.

However, I don't think I need to go to the opera and theatre regularly to get on in life, and I suspect for men, the most "equalising" topic of conversation is football. With women it's a little different as I suppose the variety of hobbies and interests is wider.

Nothing to do with how much money you have or had growing up.

My father was working class, my mother upper middle. Both loved classical music, history, literature, art, theatre to a lesser degree (Gilbert & Sullivan mostly!).

Of the 2 of them, my father was definitely the pushier when it came to "bettering" himself and his DC. My mother would introduce us to subjects because she enjoyed them, not because she thought they were "good for us". She was also the one who would go a bit over the top for Christmas decorations - the more & gaudier the better especially the tree.

But probably the most important lesson they taught us about "culture" is that you question things like "why is this considered great literature" or "why did they build castles this way, and why were stately homes laid out like this". Acquisition of "Cultural Capital" for it's own sake is IMO pretty pointless, but knowledge and understanding are the important things.

Cultural capital as an idea developed in the 1960s by a number of French Marxist sociologists to explain why certain classes in France were able to continue reproducing themselves - they argued that it was not simply about economic power but also cultural power. For every one that googled wikepedia - you missed the second paragraph which was the important one. A number of points need to be considered a) that this is a Marxist critique of late capitalism and French bourgeoisie and was meant to help the 1960s youth bring about emancipation rather than just say - take your kids to the theatre. As in most critical theory - much of it links economics with the social - and the symbolic with practice i.e. it aint about theatres - it just says that money isnt the only way that mc keep out the riff raff.

Conclusion - rich people keep out the poor not just with money but also other cultural artefacts.....but Bourdieu etc being a Marxist never forgot about the capital i.e. the money.....and neither should we when discussing whether sending wc kids to the theatre will improve their life chances while simultaneously reducing Universal Credit

what irritated me...is that the OP professes to start a thread about how they try to instill cultural capital into their kids without understanding what it means

cos the first question is - ARE YOU RICH....and the second is: do you take your kids to the opera

@fishywaters

One of the most striking differences to me is between rural and urban families. I grew up in the countryside, and as such know all the rules about how to behave, can identify lots of plants and species that people seem astounded that I know. (MIL seemed to think I was the antichrist for answering a question on The Chase about fungi).

But I also know how to navigate a city, because urban is the default experience and it's represented a lot in film and tv, and I visited towns and cities.

I don't know these things because I'm smart, I know them because I've been exposed to them. I have the cultural capital of two environments, and urbanites tend to have a very sketchy understanding of rural affairs/specific knowledge.

The same can be applied to all modes of culture: TV, music, clothes, sports, art, history, foreign cultures, food.

I visited every country in Europe before the age of ten, but due to parental food issues, barely tried any local food.

I could quote most Monty Python by age ten, watch I, Claudius, read Asterix at the library every Saturday (all interlinked Roman knowledge) - but to this day I've never seen an episode of Eastenders.

People are right to say that cultural capital is a broad range, but wide exposure is really important for brain development, experience and empathy. And as I said upthread, some children even lack the cultural capital on a very simple level of having been to the beach.

A tangled debate, inevitably, Pumpkin314! It's true, as so many have said, that cultural capital is not the same, being much wider and harder to define, as what is traditionally understood as "high culture".

I love what Ihatefish has observed regarding middle class markers - and think fondly of a long-ago thread on the global elite and how the children of such are educated. I will treasure my newly acquired knowledge of Hello Kitty hashi ...

Sadly no, Mummyoflittledragon - I just hope she's still listening to The Archers, and following the thread - where her beautiful acronym is in constant use atm.

but as @Ihatefish has noted nowadays Cultural Capital is much more about just having cash and being able to afford stuff than reading books. Relatively speaking the 1960s-80s were a period of social mobility and therefore cultural capital mattered more and could be acquired.

Within the current economic system and looking around those that live near us (London zone 1) - really it's just cash - i.e. you fit in if you can afford a couple of nannies, have lots of holidays, send kids to private schools etc etc etc. Obviously knowing the right....etc is also cultural and symbolic - but essentially the system has changed and schools that try and install 'culture' are working with an outdated model. We're back in the 19th century set up - are you part of the landed class and how much do you earn. That predetermins children's outcomes and not whether they've been to the theatre. Now, of course, if you've made it to the Bar then perhaps having tickets to the Opera is nice...but by now people also go to football etc - it's actually much more egalitarian once you make it but arguibaly thats because you need a hell of a lot of money behind you to make it

We play fortnite but occasional have a high brow culture evening with top gear,if we want to be really intellectual we watch who wants to be a millionaire.

@zurich09

These are good points but is seems like the term now has a new meaning, one used by Ofsted to refer to museum trips etc.

I find this insulting to be honest and I reckon those Marxists would as well. It infers that middle class culture is actually superior to all other types, rather than the reality that it’s merely associated with a class of people who hold the power.

A few museum trips is not going to be enough to redress the inequalities in society, as you point out money would be far more useful.

I’m working class done good. So is DH.
Our DC would probably be considered upper middle class.
How was that gap bridged?
Education and money to be honest.
We’re really not an ‘improving pursuits’ sort of family.

@toconclude

The desperate inverted snobbery of some on this thread is a good explanation of why kids with non mainstream interests get bullied. How very dare they not follow the crowd...

yes yes yes

My children are grown now. When they were young we tried our best to teach them often tacitly, occasionally explicitly how capitalism (including relationships between cultural and economic capital and their influence on hegemonic power) distorts the human spirit and is detrimental to human flourishing.

It worked. Our children are, I dare to claim, decent, caring and successful human beings. And socialists. What more might we want for our children?

Theatre, fine art, mathematics, poetry, history, music and all the rest: we taught our children to enjoy such good things, not in order that they might play capitalism's games with any greater facility, but because such things are good in themselves (or, if you like, because their appreciation conduces to that same human flourishing I mentioned above).

I am glad early years education in Britain is explicitly encouraging the teaching of what it calls 'cultural capital'. I hope teachers engage with this in the knowledge that such aspects of our shared culture have intrinsic merit rather than with any expectation of instrumental benefit for their charges in the dog-eat-dog world they are growing up in. Paradoxically, though (perhaps?), the former is likely to develop the latter, as it did for our children, whatever their socialist ideals.

I bought my 7 y/o girl Beatles and other 60s and 70s music, jazz and a tiny bit of classical. But she is interested and enjoys listening. I wouldn't force it in her if the door is closed. I don't know if that's cultural capital? I appreciate your honesty in using that term, though it makes me queasy.

@MustWe - it absolutely does have a new meeting. I only mentioned the academic meaning of the term to highlight what everyone else has been talking about i.e. its about power, capital and culture i.e. cultural capital is about mc having power.

but the reason why i brought it up is that by now the world has changed and its actually about capital and less about culture. so yes the schools have caught on but by now it isnt about theatres but back to the landed classes and rent seeking - thats what gives you social mobility and not culture.

meaning

I don't do this with a view to economic mobility but I've noticed that I do things to try and help my children fit in.

I want my son to know the popular cultural references that his peers will have. Making sure he's seen the popular films/shows and knows the popular songs so that he feels informed.

If he wants to get into 70s prog rock well that's his choice but I think I have a responsibility to expose him to the things that will help him in social situations as well. We'll go to age appropriate theatre and museums because they're fun primarily. I'm not sure those things are going to be as helpful to him as knowing a bit about the Premier League for instance.

Another thing I am now thinking is i personally do not get the game of football no matter how many times i watch it i just dont get so dont think i ever will, I habe no problems with .y husband loving it though.

But using the uk as an example how many go to football matches than go to a rugby one?

So football is meant to 'working class' and rugby 'middle class'

But more people go to football, i believe, so it it more cultural due to popularity?