Discuss the conflict perspective on education and explain cultural capital and class reproduction

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Conflict theorists argue that access to quality education is closely related to social class. From this approach, education is a vehicle for reproducing existing class relationships. According to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the school legitimates and reinforces the social elites by engaging in specific practices that uphold the patterns of behavior and the attitudes of the dominant class. Students from diverse class backgrounds come to school with different amounts of cultural capital—social assets that include values, beliefs, attitudes, and competencies in language and culture. Cultural capital involves "proper" attitudes toward education, socially approved dress and manners, and knowledge about books, art, music, and other forms of high and popular culture. Middle- and upper-income parents endow their children with more cultural capital than do working-class and poverty-level parents. Because cultural capital is essential for acquiring an education, children with less cultural capital have fewer opportunities to succeed in school. For example, standardized tests that are used to group students by ability and to assign them to classes often measure students' cultural capital rather than their "natural" intelligence or aptitude. Thus, a circular effect occurs: Students with dominant cultural values are more highly rewarded by the educational system, and in turn, the educational system teaches and reinforces those values that sustain the elite's position in society.