The Impact of Cultural Capital on Education

        

Cultural capital in the realm of education has impacted my own educational experience due to the tendency for cultural capital to further enable the successes of the dominant culture by way of embedded class and gender expectations. In my case, the educational institution which impacted my development in way of cultural capital was the public school system. The system tends to reinforce the dominant culture by structuring education in such a way that reflects the dominant culture and sets expectations based around this. If those who partake in such education are unfamiliar with the ways of the dominant culture they in turn may be set up for failure.

My own education was impacted by class based cultural capital. Class based cultural capital can open, or instead close doors to opportunities and resources which aid in education and success. What class category one falls into creates access to “who you know” – what social network is available to one greatly impacts their ability to move forward in life. What class category you reside in allows you to gain access to certain people, and in turn to certain opportunities that others may not have access to because their class may inhibit them from associating with certain groups of people who facilitate these sorts of opportunities. For example in high school those students who came from a higher class often had an advantage to get on certain teams or gain certain summer jobs that benefited their resume and their futures due to who their parents were, or who their parents knew. This creates a social based class bias and enables further inequality within the education system, but in turn opens doors for those of which reside in such socially profitable classes, or closes doors for those who do not.

Social class also enables or disables access to certain resources. If you are born into a prestigious class, this often facilitates access to opportunities such as travel or wealth – these things may further enable ones successes or advantages. For example, the ability to afford private schooling can be a social advantage based from cultural capital - children get specific attention and many extra-curricular activities to shape their dynamic personalities and skills at younger ages in private schools, more so than those who are in a public school setting where such things may not be funded or available to students.

The opportunities available for resume building, future job opportunities, shaping ones skills, and so on may be related to class and cultural capital. The class you come from often creates an expectancy of what class you should carry on –following in the footsteps of the family is often a respectable and expected thing to do. A working class family often spawns working class children who may in turn chose a trade over years costly university education based on the fact that the funds may not be there, or they just did not have those expectancies set out or reinforced – the school reinforces the dominant culture and often rejects anything else by setting those who are not part of that culture up for a higher potential of failure as they are not prepared for the environment, in turn they follow what they know from their family based expectancies. Although anyone is capable of chasing their own dreams, it is not always reinforced by their class, by their education system, or by the opportunities available to some as opposed to others.

Gender based cultural capital had a strong impact on my education – there are many reasons why males and females are often treated differently in the education system. In my case this was specifically true in the way of expectations in the class room. For example, English and Math had heavily weighted gender assumptions associated with them. In English class when my hand raised I was often chosen by the teacher faster than a male student in the class, and pressure was placed on the females to have a correct answer, where as when a male individual was chosen this expectancy was often downplayed. It was expected that the females were better at English than the males and the females were then at a disadvantage if they were not doing well in English, because it was taken for granted knowledge that they should do well, as was the same for males in relation to math class and the expectancy that males are better at math.

The realm of sports was another area where gender based cultural capital came into play. What gender group you were a part of defined where you belonged in the realm of extracurricular activities within the school system. For example cheerleading and hockey created gender divides within the institution of education because females were expected to take part in cheerleading where as males were expected to take part in hockey based on an assumption that one would be raised to be interested or disinterested in these things in relation to their gender. If a member of a gender group wanted to take part in an activity that was not specified for their gender, for example a female wanted to be on the hockey team, this was not always possible. In my situation specifically this was not possible as no co-ed hockey team even existed. These expectations were set out based on gender and this was reflected all throughout schooling because these divides in sports expectancies also created divides outside the realm of sports – thus creating expectancies for those groups of people as well as divides within them, disadvantaging some, and privileging others.

The education system and cultural capital does not facilitate a shift from current inequalities and expectancies. This way of divides displays a Marxist method or organization. Cultural capital creates a class and gender based divide which is not easily steered away from, and creates struggle for those of whom come from anything other than a reinforced dominant culture.