| Beginning with Bourdieu's observations on Algerian schools in the 1950's, the role of cultural capital in the education system has been conjectured, confirmed, and scrutinized. He and other scholars have subsequently examined the influence of cultural and economic capital on academic success. While many studies have confirmed Bourdieu's assertion that cultural capital plays a role in social reproduction, others have asserted that it can also affect student's opportunities for social mobility. The conclusions drawn depend profoundly on how cultural capital is operationalized. Cultural capital acquired prior to schooling is associated with the social reproduction model, while that acquired through participation in school-based cultural activities is associated with social mobility.;Based on surveys undertaken by the National Center for Educational Statistics of three cohorts of students---the High School graduating class of 1972, 8th graders in 1988, and High School sophomores in 2002---as well as a series of follow-up surveys for the two older groups, this study uses hierarchical linear modeling to investigate the role of both student and school level measures of three types of cultural capital and economic capital on a wide range of academic outcomes. Parental and family-based cultural capitals are used to confirm the role of cultural capital in social reproduction, while significant effects for school-based cultural capital also offer support for the social mobility model. Student-level effects have a larger impact on outcomes than school-level variables. Along with the analysis of separate models of social reproduction and social mobility, an investigation of equations for where all four types of capital are present indicates that social reproduction is the dominant effect of cultural capital throughout all three cohorts and for both immediate and long-term outcomes. |
