The Exploration Of Bourdieu’s Cultural Capital Concept

Bourdieu is considered to be the scholar who made the greatest contribution to the capital theory after Marx. Because he firstly explicated cultural capital theory, realizing the cultural turn of capital research. Moreover, he treated the cultural capital as individual and embodied capital, realizing the micro steering of capital research. The author thinks the second steering is the core of Bourdieu capital theory.Cultural capital is an organic part of the spirit and the flesh body. The individuation of cultural capital means that there are many differences among different individuals’ accumulation and requirement on cultural capital. Through individuals’ "participatory objectification", cultural capital fused together with the subject and internalized as an inseparable part of the main body life. Except the external cultural’s internalization, cultural capital also has inherent externality. Because the subjects’ social practice influenced by cultural capital can strengthen the incorpore of cultural capital. The unconscious cultural practice is status symbol of social groups, constructing social segmentation. The process of the individuation and incorpore of the cultural capital cannot do without the social mechanism. Specifically, the social mechanism constructing the cultural capital mainly consists of family shaping and school education. They are all ruling class ideology’s inculcation into individuals. Bourdieu’s cultural capital concept shows that the capital slavery has penetrated into our capillaries. In this kind of situation, how to realize the social change? Bourdieu thought hopes lied in the intellectuals. In his opinion, intellectuals who control the cultural capital can recognize all the rank constraint and sanctions through self-examination, thus to take some behaviors. Bourdieu’s opinion met with opposition once proposed, but it is at least a kind of try to reply the deepening capital slavery.