Controversial Issue of Tastes among Individuals in Various Social Classes - Literature review Example

Taste-the good, the bad and the ugly Introduction Pierre Bourdieu found out that even though taste may seem like an individual practice, it is under the regulation of the practice’s logic and always varies with the class of the people practicing it (Bourdieu, 1984). This cultural studies paper examines the controversial issue of tastes among individuals in various social classes. It particularly narrows down to the issue of cultural capital as defined by Bourdieu, comparing it with other forms of capital such as economic capital. It presents arguments and applies theoretical models as analytical tools to analyse these arguments. It uses examples drawn from history as well as from the present in discussing Bourdieu’s term, cultural capital. Cultural capital Cultural capital refers to the knowledge, connections or experience that people go through in the course of their lives that make them succeed more than those who did not go through a similar experience. Pierre Bourdieu, a great French sociologist, worked with a number of his colleagues and came up with the cultural capital concept, aimed at addressing a particular pragmatic problem. This problem is the reality that economic barriers are not adequate in the explanation of the disparities that exist in the attainment of education among children who come from dissimilar social classes (Bourdieu, 1984). Bourdieu was of the argument that beyond and above economic factors, cultural dispositions and habits that the children inherit from the family are vital to success in school and beyond. In so doing, Bourdieu sharply differed with the conventional sociological notions of culture (Bourdieu, 1984). It viewed it mainly as a basis of shared values and norms or as a collective expression vehicle. Bourdieu instead insisted that culture has many properties that characterise economic capital. Particularly, Bourdieu made an assertion to the effect that cultural dispositions consist of resources that can generate profits (Bourdieu, 1984). They however have the potential of being monopolised by groups as well as individuals and, under suitable conditions, can be passed on from one generation to another. Being the originator of the cultural capital concept, Bourdieu often showed reluctance in elaborating what some concepts outside empirical research mean and what their significance is. According to Bourdieu, competence is capital as long as it can facilitate the appropriation of the cultural heritage of a society. However, this capital is unequally distributed and has as a result created opportunities for restricted advantages (Bourdieu, 1984). In a society characterised by highly distinguished social structure, as well a system of formal education, these advantages mainly stem from institutionalizing the evaluation criteria in schools. This involves adopting assessment standards that favour children from a certain social class or classes. Bourdieu presented an argument to the effect that cultural capital can be perceived to exist in three distinctive forms namely the embodied form, the objectified form and the institutionalised form (Bourdieu, 1984). In cultural capital’s embodied form, it is a skill or competence that is not separable from the person holding it (Eyal et al, 1998). By itself, acquiring cultural capital assumes time investment devoted to training and learning (Bryson, 1996). For instance, a college student studying art history gains a competence that becomes an embodied cultural capital form because it is greatly valued in a number of institutional settings (Eyal et al, 1998). In addition, objects themselves function as some form of cultural capital as long as their consumption or use assumes some level of the embodied cultural capital (Bryson, 1996). For instance, a philosophy text may be regarded as an objectified cultural capital form because it needs an earlier training in the field of philosophy in order to understand it (Eyal et al, 1998). Finally, in societies that have a formal education system, an institutionalized form of cultural capital is presented (Eyal et al, 1998). This means that by a school certifying individuals’ skills and competencies through the issuance of credentials and grades, these individuals’ embodied cultural capital obtains an objective value. Consequently, for instance, since two people who have the same credentials possess equal value as far as the labour market is concerned, educational degrees can be regarded as some distinct cultural capital form. Since they make individuals interchangeable in this manner, institutionalizing performs the same function in cultural capital as money in economic capital (Eyal et al, 1998). On the other hand, in spite of the similarities between economic capital and cultural capital they also differ from each other in numerous respects. In particular, legitimization of inequalities in cultural capital happens in a highly distinct manner compared to that of economic inequality (Eyal et al, 1998). Despite cultural capital being acquired at home or at school through exposure to certain cultural practices; and hence its origin is social, it is prone to being perceived as talent or inborn, with the holder being referred to as gifted or talented. This is due to the well known fact that cultural capital is embodied in specific individuals (Eyal et al, 1998). Furthermore, since the school system converts into scholastic cultural capital all the inherited cultural capital, scholastic capital has been made to appear as individuals’ achievements. For instance, middle class parents have been known to talk to young children and infants more than their poor and working class counterparts. Consequently, middle class children have been observed to have a richer vocabulary by the time they enter school, enabling them to score better in tests that measure verbal skills. However, parents, teachers and the students may wrongly interpret this difference in scores as an individual effort or natural talent. Bourdieu’s arguments about cultural capital were very remarkable since they vocally challenged the common view that regards modern schooling as an engine of mobility promoting or demoting people through its class structure, simply basing on their efforts and talents. In fact, from Bourdieu’s vantage point, which is highly critical, modern schooling systems are experts at the validation and augmentation of family-inherited cultural capital than they are at instilling the cultural capital in children entering the school with few or none of these requisite skills and dispositions (Bourdieu, 1984). As a result, modern education systems have a tendency of channelling individuals in the direction of class destinations largely mirroring their class origins. Additionally, they have a tendency of eliciting the acceptance of this outcome both from those disfavoured by it and those privileged by it. Bourdieu’s later work made use of the cultural capital notion in further reinforcing the hypothesis that culture plays a key role in social inequality (Eyal et al, 1998). The cultural capital concept has had a great impact in the field of sociology since it places culture at the centre of any research in stratification (Eyal et al, 1998). Classes can only be distinguished from one another on the basis of their overall capital volume, controlled by families or individuals. Within the individual classes, class fractions can be distinguished from each by what the capital they control is composed of; that is the economic to cultural capital ratio (Bryson, 1996). According to Bourdieu, every class exhibits a comparatively exceptional taste pattern that is consistent with its given mix of economic and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1984). Accordingly, for instance artistic producers and professors; who are rich in cultural capital, made use of their great cultural capital endowment in appreciating the most ultra-modern art forms. On the other hand, employers, who represent the richest fraction of the dominant class in terms of economic capital, preferred less intellectually demanding art forms, especially those conforming to the traditional notion of beauty and connoting a luxury sense. These taste differences should be examined as prestige constitutive claims of status according to Weber’s social honour; termed by Bourdeiu as simply symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1984). By themselves, these differences were seen to play an important role in legitimizing class stratification. In English sociology the cultural capital concept started making its way into literature from the 1970s, when Reproduction was translated. Having had its origin when Bourdieu studied France’s educational system, it has been in the educational research field for so long that the cultural capital notion has sparked a great amount of theoretical reflection and empirical research, as well as great contention. However, this concept has proved to be fruitful in numerous other areas of research (Bryson, 1996). For instance, Eyal et al (1998) proceeded from what Bourdieu had studied about how different capital forms influence stratification patterns. They examined the class structures of Central Europe, which had just emerged form communism, and its focus on cultural capital. Different from many predictions, bureaucratic nomenclature did not utilize their authority successfully under communism in appropriating a big portion of the state property in the process of privatization marking transition from communism to capitalism. Possessing cultural capital enables one to gain access to the leading positions in the state and the economy. On the other hand, being short of cultural capital presents a significant barrier to accessing these resources (Bryson, 1996). The cultural capital concept has also been proved very useful in studying aesthetic preferences and tastes (Jones, 1991). In this perspective, sociologists have carried out evaluations on the association between taste and social position (Körner, 1990). They concentrated on the fondness for high forms of aesthetics at the core of Distinction. The evidence for the proposition is of the indication that in the modern United States, for instance, this relation differs from what was charted by Bourdieu. Therefore, Peterson et al (1996) is of the view that in cultural taste matters, the United States elites are more of omnivores than snobs. Status claims now have a tendency of hinging on familiarity with various genres within every cultural forms such as film, literature and music. The genres range from the lowbrow; such as rock and country music, to the middlebrow; such as Broadway show tunes, and to highbrow; such as opera and classical music (Peterson et al, 1996). Those who claim status are expected by the society to be capable of distinguishing creditable examples of every genre in accordance with judgement standards unique to it. Although there is a significant difference between it and the form that Bourdieu delineated in his French lifestyle research account, this orientation is undoubtedly restrictive upon social class indicators like education. Consequently, it has a tendency of functioning like some kind of cultural capital. In fact, Bryson (1992) refers to it as multi-cultural capital. Although the cultural capital concept has been integrated into numerous sociology areas, it has earned itself a lot of criticism. For instance, Giroux (1983) is of the opinion that viewing culture principally as some form of capital makes it impossible in acknowledging its role in facilitating resistance among those in minor positions from being dominated by those in higher positions. In the same way, Lamont (1992) makes an assertion to the effect that conceptualization of culture in this way stops sociologists from knowing that it comprises of repertoires. Actors utilize these repertoires in evaluating the moral quality of other people’s experience as well as their own. These debates are likely to increase as scholars keep debating the relationship between inequality and culture. Irrespective of the shape these debates take, Bourdieu’s cultural capital concept, which distinctively focuses on social value of skills, dispositions and cultural habits, is likely to become a key part of the debates in theories of culture sociology, inequality and the education sociology in the future. Conclusion The paper examined Bourdieu’s assertion to the effect that even though taste may seem like an individual practice; it is under the regulation of the practice logic and always varies with the class of practice. The paper also examined the controversial issue of tastes among individuals in various social classes. From the analysis of the various theoretical models as tools of analysis, it is with no doubt that taste is regulated by the logic of practice. Moreover, this practice varies from one social class to another. Bourdieu’s cultural capital has also been found to have a big influence on tastes among individuals in the various social classes. References Bourdieu, P (1984) Distinction-The Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Routledge London Bryson, B (1996) Anything But Heavy Metal-Symbolic Exclusion and Cultural Dislikes, American Sociological Review Eyal, G et al (1998) Making Capitalism without Capitalists, Verso, London Giroux, H (1983) Theory and Resistance in Education-A Pedagogy for the Opposition, Bergin and Garvey, South Hadley Jones, P (1991) Taste today-The role of appreciation in consumerism and design, Pergamon, Oxford Körner, S (1990) Kant’s Theory of Aesthetic Taste, Penguin, London Lamont, M (1992) Money, Morals, and Manners-The Culture of the French and the American Upper-Middle Class, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Peterson, R et al (1996) Changing Highbrow Taste-From Snob to Omnivore, American Sociological Review Read More