Primarily associated with the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (although it was actually developed with his colleague Jean-Claude Passeron), cultural capital, along with social capital and economic capital, comes from Bourdieu’s theory of cultural reproduction. Bourdieu’s argument is that as the direct transmission of economic capital between generations was made more difficult, elite groups had to find other ways of passing on their advantages.
These included cultural resources which were transmitted and reproduced through the education system. As these desired cultural attributes are transmitted from generation to generation, this leads to social reproduction, in which higher classes maintain their privileged position across generations.
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