Cultural Capital and Race: A Problem with No Answer?

Outline:
Intro define cultural capital and explain how it ties to race.
Flush out/analyze the statement: With the exception of the occasional outlier, black people have
lower cultural capital than white people. Also consider why that is/how it impacts education and
acknowledge other factors in cultural capital.
Is cultural capital something we can change/increase? Yes or no? How do we level the playing
field for everyone in school?
Potential solutions:
-Integration between and in schools (history of it, failures, how to do better).
-Teach that race is a social construct, not a biological fact (cite Race: The Power of an Illusion)
-Acknowledge/fight stereotypes (black lives matter campaign).
-Stop treating African American Vernacular English (AAVE or Ebonics) as an inferior dialect

The term Cultural Capital is one that was initially coined by French philosopher, Pierre
Bourdieu in his work Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction in the late 1970s. Author
David Throsby succinctly articulates Bourdieus foundational principles by saying, According
to Bourdieu, this sort of cultural capital exists in three forms: in an embodied state, i.e., as a
long-lasting disposition of the individuals mind and body; in an objectified state, when cultural
capital is turned into cultural goods such as pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, machines,
etc. (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 243); and in an institutionalized state, when the embodied cultural
capital is recognized in the form of, say, an academic credential (citation). Since its original

creation, the term cultural capital has been studied and expounded on, specifically in the context
of school environments. According to educator Dr. Gayle Turner, cultural capital is, A set of
values, beliefs, norms, attitudes, experiences and so forth that equip people for their life in
society. These values, beliefs, norms, attitudes, and experiences translate into social resources, or,
lack thereof (citation). Or, more simply put, every aspect of a persons life plays a role in
equipping them for their future be it constructs like social class, race, family line, and gender,
or access to assets like time, money, experience, education, etc. In the complex web of society,
everything matters in the overarching scheme of success. While there are a lot of different
factors that can influence the amount of cultural capital a student has, one of the factors with the
greatest exigence and most clearly identifiable solutions, is race. There is very little question in
the academic community as to whether or not race is a contributing factor in limiting a students
cultural capital, and the largest disparity we see in race affecting cultural capital is, not
surprisingly, between blacks and whites. While there are outliers in the system and other races
are also affected, the subtle undercurrents of the age old skin battle between black and white is
the easiest to identify. The question then, is not does having dark skin affect a students cultural
capital? But, Is it possible to change the way that race affects cultural capital in schools?
While some would argue that racial divides are a social construct as old and deeply rooted as
humanity itself, but there is substantial evidence that there are ways to uproot this issue and
provide a more even playing field for students regardless of their ethnic background.

http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/612/art%253A10.1023%252FA
%253A1007543313370.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Farticle
%2F10.1023%2FA%3A1007543313370&token2=exp=1446410022~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf
%2F612%2Fart%25253A10.1023%25252FA%25253A1007543313370.pdf%3ForiginUrl
%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Farticle%252F10.1023%252FA
%253A1007543313370*~hmac=9187f468fd70a20a238a4f007aa30dd3b384f7a84e2cba9a4dd3b
11143bee945
http://gayleturner.net/Big_Test_Fall_2015_w_dialect.pdf