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?

swing ball

As a kid in the 1950s I was brought up in a household which had no appreciation of the value of finer things such as education, travel, the arts and so on. If my father caught me reading a book I was told to "get into the kitchen and help my mother". So I learned to study in the local library or my friends houses. Coming from this dreary lower class background it drove me to achieve and I was qualified in a profession (librarianship) by my early 20s and earning more than my father.

"Cultural capital" is a term used by sociologists to describe the kinds of skills, tastes and attributes of the (mainly) middle class. The idea is that you know how to handle yourself and can fit in on a range of social occasions where your peers are likely to gather. That entails having social and conversational skills, knowing how to act and dress and so on.

It is just a neat term to describe a certain fund of knowledge.

@zatarontoast to be fair lots of people aren't impressed by art, classic music and stately homes until something triggers in them to appreciate some of it. Therefore I wouldn't expect a child to like that stuff.
Far easier to get a child making their own stuff e.g. singing, music, drawing, modelling, needlework, etc.

Are you trying to competitive parent? In my household, I spend lots of time in bed. I’m disabled and chronically ill. We don’t get to go out much. Dd has a lot of activities though. We have lots of love and connection. Dd works well and hard at school, has loads of friends and mostly is lovely most of the time.

@Valkadin

DH and I are respectively a Professor and an academic librarian though I’m retired. We do love a bit of Netflix and also both of us love gaming which according to MN makes us childish teenagers.

Can I talk to you about the Dewey decimal system one day? I always felt I could improve it. Or teach my toddlers to, obvs.

We removed all the pens in favour of quill and ink (the art of calligraphy and letter writing is scarce among children these days)
Added a wine course to our dinners each night and compose daily stories that must only be retold in the form of dance or puppetry

My ex had never been to a museum/art gallery/theatre when we met. Hey had fairly good job in management. I suggested when we had sometime to kill in a city that we went to the museum but ‘they’re soo boring’. ‘But you’ve never been’.

I was giving a friend directions to my house that I live on the road to the left of the mock Tudor house “I didn’t take history in school”.

While ‘cultural capital’ sounds pretentious I wish it was seen to be something for the middle classes.

We had a fizzy party where we bought 10 different cans of pop and each ranked them best to worse. Vimto won.

We also reguarly have taste tests of 3 different brands of ketchup / chicken nuggets/ prawn cocktails crisps and write reviews about them.

In the field of sociology, cultural capital comprises the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in a stratified society.

Is this what you mean OP? Like learning to wear Social mobility promoting outfits? My outfits have deteriorated into loungewear. Out of boredom I've started using lots of "entertaining" rhymes in my speech a bit like Will I Am as I think young people are impressed by this.

'Cultural capital' is basically having a working knowledge of (usually canonistic 'posh') things like art, music and language, which theoretically gives you an advantage or at least parity in a society which values these. Basically, you can carry yourself off at swanky dinner parties.

I think what @californiagurl means is more "What cultural pursuits have you enjoyed recently?", or "What have you learned lately which has expanded your understanding?"

By all means correct me if I've got that wrong!

I taught the kids to play poker and they are well good.

I am on MN a lot.

I didn't know what Cultural Capital meant until I read this thread.

DS2 is off school poorly and watching old Top Gear.

Oh I did book for me and my friend to see the Bolshoi Ballet perform Romeo and Juliet (in Cambridge, not Moscow).

@Sharpandshineyteeth your trying to get them to follow in the footsteps of Victoria Coren Mitchell aren't you?

I taught my kids how to use chopsticks (and not the beginner ones)

I once took ds (aged 14 at the time) to watch Macbeth in Japanese at the Barbican. We looked at each other at the house lights went up for the interval and decided to go get a burger instead.

@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?

You do not know what cultural capital is my love! Which makes your posts much more amusing than you realise

@DCIRozHuntley

We had a fizzy party where we bought 10 different cans of pop and each ranked them best to worse. Vimto won.

We also reguarly have taste tests of 3 different brands of ketchup / chicken nuggets/ prawn cocktails crisps and write reviews about them.

That’s INSPIRED!! Guess what we’ll be doing at Christmas!!

We go to Blackpool Pleasure Beach every year.

On one occasion we went to Chessington World of Adventures to experience Southern England.

Cultural capital in our house means reading, discussing, critical thinking, growing up with an understanding of people, technology, maths, history, science. An awareness of cultural traditions such as pancakes and Easter eggs. Being able to distinguish between gossip and opinions and facts. Developing a love of horror novels/singer-songwriters/Forests/David Attenborough/Red Dwarf/Terry Pratchett/ 80s film.

All culture is culture. Not just the paintings and the ballet.

@katy1213

I read War and Peace before breakfast, speak to the children in Mandarin Chinese on Wednesdays and confiscate their phones if they don't write a sonnet or a symphony every week. I worry that I'm not doing enough as I've noticed that they are never invited on playdates.

I want to be like you when I grow up. Snarky, maybe, but snarky can be very very funny.

I don't view 'cultural capital' as to do with knowledge of culture. It is what a student brings to, say a course, that other students may not, that they've picked up at home. An awareness of the news, knowing what a wide range of words mean etc, is what I view as cultural capital. Speaking in full sentences at home, reading books, having discussions etc.

All the kids with 'cultural capital' rocked up at my university in 1979 and spent three years trying to prove their Street Credibility aka 'street cred'.

Cultural Capital has now been explicitly written into the early years foundation stage curriculum and it is also now in the national curriculum, so yeah you might sneer at the OP, but it is a big thing in education at the moment.

In Early Years it is being interpreted as Narrowing the Gap for children and valuing what each and every child brings with them as a unique child. So a child might live in a flat and have no outside garden so the setting offer a gardening space and grow plants.

we were kicked out of the Picasso museum because ds kept leaning against the wall.

Just be grateful he didn't scream at the Michelangelo.