Culture, Class, And Connections

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Culture, Class, and ConnectionsAuthor(s): Bonnie H. EricksonSource: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 102, No. 1 (Jul., 1996), pp. 217-251Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2782191 .Accessed: 19/05/2014 15:16

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Culture, Class, and Connections1Bonnie H. EricksonUniversity f Toronto

Bourdieu's analysis of class and culture rrs n neglecting wo im-portant spects of social structure: ocial networks nd class rela-tions at work. He expectshigh-status ulture o be useful n classbecause t s correlated ith lass,but culture sed at work ncludesboth genres elated o class (used in domination) nd genres unre-lated to class (used in coordination). igh-status ulture s corre-lated with class but excluded, not used, in the competitive rivatesector. The most widelyuseful ultural esource s cultural ariety,and social network ariety sa better ource f cultural ariety hanis class itself.

Bourdieu'sDistinction 1984) has done much to illuminate he profoundconnections etween class and culture. However, Distinction neglectstwo important spects of social structure: ersonal networks nd work

relationships. ersonal networks re a major sourceof cultural esourcesand a more powerful ource than class itself, s this article will show.Social relationships t work are the fundamental ite of class processesin their most direct form. n this article report esearch howing heimportance f structure nd of a more omplexview of culture nd classand the relationships etween hem.

Bourdieuoffers oth model of class structure nd a life ourse naly-sis of class reproduction. e argues hat lassand culture re both verti-cally ranked n mutually einforcing ays. The culture of the highest

classes becomes the most distinguished ulture, pparently ecause it isinnately uperior ut really because it is the culture f those who rule.In its turn, ulture s a class signal hat helps o maintain lass dominationand to shape individual ife chances, much as economic capital does.

1I thank cott Davies, Paul DiMaggio,CharlesKadushin,MicheleLamont, KeithStewart, orne Tepperman, avid Tindall, Barry Wellman, nd an AJS reviewerfor heir elpful omments; he oreresearch eam Jeff ormier, hannon ackson,Don Lloyd, nd David Tindall) or heir ffort nd enterprise; he ocial Sciences nd

Humanities esearch Councilof Canada for financial upport; nd the Centre orUrban and Community tudies,University f Toronto, orproviding supportiveresearch ome. Direct orrespondence o BonnieH. Erickson, epartment f Sociol-ogy,University f Toronto, 03 College treet, oronto M5T 1P9,Ontario, anada.

? 1996by The University f Chicago. All rights eserved.0002-9602/97/10201-0006$01.50

AJS Volume 102 Number 1 (July 1996): 217-251 217

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AmericanJournal f Sociology

Indeed Bourdieu argues that culture s a form f capital as worthy fanalytic attention s economic capital itself. Cultural capital varies

with the prestige evel of one's culture: ultural capital is smallest nvolume for the culture ypical t the bottom f the class structure ndgreatest n volume for he culture ypical f elites.

Bourdieu uses both economic nd cultural apital to describe two-dimensional model of class (Bourdieu 1984, pp. 128-29). The verticaldimension oncerns apital volume: the higher he class, the more eco-nomic nd cultural apital peopletend o have. The horizontal imensionconcerns he composition f capital, or the strength f cultural apitalversus conomic apital. For example,professors nd top business ead-ers both belong o the dominant lass, but cultural apital matters morein academia and economic apital matters more n the business world.At the same time, professors ave more cultural nd economic capitalthan grade schoolteachers, nd business lites have more apital of bothkinds than those ower down in the business world. This model is anoverview f the class structure; n more detailed nalysis, Bourdieu em-phasizes fields, or particular ocial settings n which class dynamicstake place. Fields vary in the relative mportance f economic versuscultural apital, but people always get ranked by some combination fthese. Fieldsvary n their ultural evel and range, but, within ach field,the higher anks have more prestigious ulture, nd this culture helpsthem both to dominate nd to legitimate heir domination. ields varyin the particular orms f culture hat pay off, but, in each field, herelevant orms re selected from he overall cultural hierarchy n waysthat favor the dominant eople in the field. Thus, each field hould beanalyzed separately, but each field has the same logic underlying tsapparently nique details e.g., Bourdieu 1984, pp. 113-14). Although

Bourdieu tresses he theoretical mportance f fields, e says ittle boutwhat they re or how to identify hem n research.One theoretical roblem with this two-capital model is neglect of a

crucial third form f capital: social capital, a capital of social connec-tions, honourability, nd respectability Bourdieu 1984, p. 122). Butsocial connections re too important o ignore. Earlier research elatedto the topic of social connections nd class has shown that people withmore dvantaged origins nd more prestigious obs have better etworksand that having richer etworks an lead to better obs (e.g., Granovetter

1995;Lin 1982).Here I focus on the more neglected opicof networksand culture nd show that network ariety s strongly inked oculturalvariety; ndeed, networks ave more mpact n culture han class does. Ireturn o this heme elow, after iscussing ow to conceptualize ulture.

A secondtheoretical roblem oncerns ultural apital tself. ourdieuargues that genres nd their ontents re ranked n prestige r distinc-

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is built on survey ata relating ccupations o eisure ifestyles n France.Respondents rom he same occupation must come from many differ-

ent fields, et there s no way to distinguish hefields or to observe heclass relationship ithin ields. argue that one important nterpretationof a field s an industry n a specific ocal market. ndustries end tobe distinctive ocations n social structure, ith their wn labor marketsand product markets, heir own competitions etween companies forbusiness nd between eople for obs, and their wn characteristic ormsof company organization nd relationships etween people in differentpositions. True, an industry tudy s a case study, nd we must be cau-tious n making wider generalizations. ourdieu himself, owever, r-gues that the dynamics f all fields re essentially hesame and that wemust examine pecific ields o see these dynamics learly. Here, I willreport n one industry n one major metropolitan rea. The industry sa highly ompetitive nd little egulated ne, so it offers clear and starkexampleof private ector lass relationships.

The mismatch etween heory nd data in Distinction ncludes botha failure o study fields nd a focus on leisure ifestyles. n leisure ife,class is ust one of many nfluences n lifestyles Halle 1984), nd cultureis ust one of many ways to draw social boundaries Lamont 1992). Classboundaries o exist n social ties way fromwork Wright nd Cho 1992),but they re much blurred by the effects f other nfluences n socialrelationships. eisure ife s partially elated o class, but work ife onsti-tutes lass. Thus class relationships t work hould no onger eneglectedin the study f class and culture.

What part doesculture lay n concrete lass structure n work organi-zations?To answer his uestion, t s essential oremember hat uccess-ful companies must have both domination nd coordination. ourdieustresses omination: igher lasses have power and authority ver owerclasses. In partial agreement with Bourdieu, argue that the cultureuseful n domination s some kind of culture orrelated with class. Themore that those who run companiesuse culture hat they know betterthan heir nferiors, hemore heir uperiority semphasized nd ustified;the higher eople rise, hemore ccessthey aveto higher-level etworksand their istinctive ubcultures; nd the more they dopt those ubcul-tures the higher hey can rise as Useem [1984]shows for the businesselite). But what will this dominating ulture be? I argue that t is defi-

nitely not Bourdieu's distinction, r the highest-status orms f cul-ture, n most private ector ettings. Highbrow ulture s defined s anirrelevant waste of time n the private ector nd is actively xcludedfrom he workplace Erickson 1991). High-status ulture as some valueat the peak of the private ector, where upport or he arts mprovescompany's tanding nd key players must maintain inks to different

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Culture, Class, Connections

kinds of companies nd to government Useem 1984). But the businesselite, though powerful, s a tiny fragment f the business world. Most

establishments re modest n size (Spaeth and O'Rourke 1994, p. 883),like the ones reported n this rticle, nd mostbusiness eaders' concernsextend ittle beyond the mmediatewelfare f their wn firms Useem1984, p. 3).

A competitive, eripheral rivate ector ndustry s just the kind offieldwhere Bourdieu expects ultural apital to be relatively imited ndto be relatively nimportant ompared o economic apital. But his argu-ment does not lead us to expect that cultural apital is excluded. Heshows a correlation f class and high-status ulture n all parts of hismodel of the class-structure, hough he peak levels of culture re lowerin the more ntrepreneurial egions. his pattern olds n the field tudiedhere: owners and managers know more about high-status ulture hansupervisors nd employees o. But owners nd managers lso know moreabout business ulture, which has far more direct rofitability or hem.So they xcludehigh ulture n favor f business ulture, rom he execu-tive unch othe business ournal, thus displaying heir ultural uperior-ity nd their work thic imultaneously. ven in the dynamics f domina-tion, correlation ith class is not at all the same thing s usefulness nclass.

Domination lone, however, annot be enough. Companyrulers mustcoordinate nd motivate he efforts f all ranks n the company, nd thiscalls for hared culture o smooth elationships cross class boundaries.Culture hat has little r no correlation ith class is a necessary art ofclass relationships. hus, relying n correlations s doubly wrong: first,some of the culture correlated with class in a field gets used in classrelations nd somedoes not, nd, second, omeculture ets used preciselybecause it is not correlated with class. I heartily gree with Bourdieu nthe universal mportance f culture f some kind, but there an be nosingle universally seful kind. There is no one type of culture such ascultural apital) that fuels class dynamics n all fields o at least somedegree, nd every field needs at least two distinct ypesof culture, nefor domination nd one for ntegration, ne class related nd one not.

Cultural apital does matter ome of the time, for xample, s a basisfor cholastic uccess and marriage hoices DiMaggioand Mohr 1985).Thus a person with a well-stocked, seful cultural repertoire ught to

command quite a few types of culture n order to be distinguished rbusinesslike r popular as required. This returns s to my earlier laimthat the most widelyuseful ultural esource s cultural ariety nd thatcultural variety s closely inked to social network ariety. Those whointeract with a wider variety f people must respond o a wider varietyof culture hown by others nd, hence, develop a wider repertoire f

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culture themselves DiMaggio 1987).Now people are more varied intheir ulture when they re in distinct tructural ocations ince cultural

differences nd structural oundaries reinforce ach other DiMaggio1987). define network ariety s the number f distinct lassesrepre-sented n a network, sing a variation f Wright's 1985)class schemedescribed n detail below. Compared to other lass typologies, ncludingthe occupational ategories hatBourdieuuses, Wright's pproach bringsus closer to the real gaps in concrete ocial structure. he greater henetwork ariety f classes,the more varied a person's ulture, speciallyin terms f ust those cultural variations hat are most related to classdifferences. hus, unlikeBourdieu, give social networks major rather

than a peripheral ole n the analysis of cultural esources.Though Bourdieu underestimates he mportance f class structure nworkplaces nd in social networks, e overestimates he mportance fclass in his life cycle nalysis. He also oversimplifies hedifferent tagesof class trajectories, s though very tep from ne's parent's ducationto one's current ob had the same kind of relationship o culture. willargue that forms f class need as much unpacking s forms f cultureand that forms f culture avemarkedly arying elationships ith formsof class, with other nequalities, nd with the class variety n one's net-works.

Like Mannheim 1952), Bourdieu argues that cultural orientationslearned arly n life re unconscious, akenfor granted, ard to change,and powerful n shaping responses olater experiences. or Bourdieu tfollows hat children earn the class-based cultural orientation f theirparents nd this orientation hapes the child's class trajectory. hildrenwith higher-class arents are socialized naturally o like and knowjust the kinds of higher-status ulture hat schools teach and reward.Hence such children end to do well in long educational areers, whichin turn add still more to their cultural capital. As people move fromschool to work, hose quipped with better egrees nd more ultivationget the better obs.

This story verestimates he ifelong nfluence f parents' lass. Bour-dieu thinks hat hildren evelop deeply ngrained, argely nconsciousorientation habitus) hat hapes all their utward manifestations f taste.Bourdieu acknowledges hat peopledo pick up new cultural aggageasthey move through ife and that they xperience his as the free hoice

of things heynaturally ike but that they ike ust those things hat fitwith heir abitus. Sothey earn new things ut the same kind of things,so their ultural apital stays much the ame. If they ry o increase heircapital deliberately e.g., by going oa wine seminar r taking up golf),they annot do so naturally nough omake a socially onvincing isplay

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of taste more distinguished han that earned t home. Culturally peak-ing, family s destiny.

Family s not destiny, owever, n a rapidly hanging ociety n whichclass structures nd cultural ossibilities oth hange onsiderably ithinone generation, o that the parents' cultural framework eems out ofdate, nor s it destiny n a society n which hildren ainmassiveculturalinfusions rom chooling hat s longer nd more mportant o ife hancesthan their parents' ducations Hunter 1988). Neither s culture s im-mune to conscious manipulation s Bourdieu mplies. Major life transi-tions, especially he transition o adulthood, an shake up old assump-tions and offer fresh ncounter Mannheim 1952) with a range ofnew choices.

Instead of arguing hat culture s a unidimensional matter eeply m-printed n early ife, argue that culture ncludes many genres earnedat different imes f ife. For example,peopleoften ecome sports buffsin childhood and adolescence, earn much of what they know abouthighbrow ooks or art n schoolbut get their nowledge f current usi-ness trends r restaurants n the present ay. It follows hat one's familyorigins, chooling, ast class locations, nd current lass have differentrelative mportance or different enres.

As well as overestimating he formative nfluence f parental class,Bourdieu's ife cycle analysis underplays he mportance f forms f in-equality ther han class. As Hall (1992) argues,gender nd ethnicity reimportant ndependent ases of culture, ncluding many varieties f cul-ture other han cultural apital. All major forms f inequality enerategroup boundaries hat maintain ultural ifferences. ll tend to generatecultural dvantage of some kind for dominant groups, who will knowmore about some forms f culture hat will be strategically seful ust

because more powerful eople are more nvolved n them. All forms fadvantage also tend to generate networks nd hence greater ulturalvariety. Multiple forms f nequality re especially mportant iven myemphasis n multiple ultural enres, inceeach genre an correlate withinequalities n different ays.

One ironic nd important onsequence s that genres hat bridge gapsfor ome forms f inequality an simultaneously einforce ther forms.The research reported elow shows that sports s a useful cross-classcoordinating enre, popular n all class levels and widely een as some-

thing n common with others t work. Sports discussionshelp to buildcooperative ies across class levels. But, at the same time, women andforeign-born eople know much ess about sports, o they re margin-alizedin the nformal etworks hat both keep companies ntegrated ndhelp further ndividual areers.

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A REVIEW OFTHE ARGUMENT

The preceeding ritical dialogue with Bourdieu eads us to a differentview of social structure nd culture nd of individual trajectories ndculture. Complex modern ocieties nclude many mportant orms f n-equality ncluding ender nd ethnicity s well as class. Each form oeswith different et of social boundaries nd social networks, hich up-port a different et of relevant ultural differences. here is no singlecultural hierarchy hat correlates with all forms f inequality. nstead,genres hat help to distinguish evels of one kind of nequality an crossboundaries nd unite evels of another nequality. ports, for example,

divides men from women but unites men of all classes. Further, achform f nequality s itself very omplex tructure ncludingmanydiffer-ent social settings. hough we speak of the class structure, heworldof work ncludes multiple ndustries nd markets with varying ulturaldistributions nd rules of relevance. n some settings, uch as networksof writers Anheier, Gerhards, nd Romo 1995), high-status ulture simportant n distinguishing ocial positions nd rank. But in many oth-ers, ncluding he vast mass of private ector ompanies elow elite evel,high-status ulture s defined s an irrelevant waste of time; businessculture prevails and distinguishes. urther till, within single field,there will always be more than one kind of culture hat matters n thedynamics f inequality. There must be relationships etween unequalgroups s well as boundaries between hem, hus many actors draw onculture hat crosses group boundaries s well as culture hat differs e-tween groups.

From the individual's point of view, it follows hat the most usefulcultural esource s a little working nowledge f a lot of cultural enrescombined with a good understanding f which culture o use in whichcontext. Equipped with cultural variety nd the rules of relevance,person can navigate successfully n many settings; quipped with vastamounts f high culture lone, a person would be shipwrecked n manysocial seas. Cultural variety oes not come primarily rom lass, or anyother ingle kind of attribute r social location, since each of these srelated o ust some forms f culture. nstead, the most powerful ingleteacher f cultural ariety s contact with people n many different oca-tions: network ariety builds cultural variety. Advantaged people, in-

cludinghigher-class eople,will certainly ave better ultural esources,but this s not because of their lass as such but because of the diversenetworks hat advantaged peoplehave.

As peoplemove through heir ife rajectories, heymove through if-ferent ocial settings n which different inds of culture re salient, sothere s no one life tage that dominates n learning ll cultural genres.

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As they move they continue o learn; the early nfluence f family forigin s just one influence mong many nd not so powerful verall as

later effects f education nd adult social networks.I tested hese rguments n a highly ompetitive rivate ector ndus-try, he Toronto ecurity ndustry. n this rticle, first iscussmeasuresof familiarity ith several genres, how these genres elate to class, andthe degree to which they enter the workplace. Second, I discuss mymeasure of network variety nd its relationships ith both class andculture. inally explore hepossibleroots f culture n early ife familybackground, ther forms f inequality, nd education), n past workcareer, nd in current lass and socialnetwork. expected ofind manyuseful orms f culture ot one, many variations n how forms f cultureand forms of inequality re related rather han one master trend ofhigher-status ulture oing with higher tatus hroughout ife, nd a ma-jor connection etween ultural iversity nd network iversity.

METHODSThe research etting s the private ontract ecurity ndustry n Toronto,Canada. Following earlier research Shearing, Farnell, and Stenning1980), this study defined he ndustry s all companies ffering ecurityservices n the open market. his doesnot ncludepolicepersonnelwork-ing during ff ime for private mployers, or ordinary ocksmiths, orin-house ecurity ervices hat some companies provide for themselves.In the Toronto rea, Canada's largest market, here re over 300 securitycompanies ffering wide range f security uard, private nvestigation,and security ardware ervices.Guards work n construction ites, om-panies, malls, condominiums, ousing rojects, rmored ars, and othersites, or respond oalarms. Private nvestigators o an even wider rangeof work ncluding ackground hecks on potential mployees, hecksoninsurance laims, goingundercover n warehouseswith uspiciously ighloss rates, tracing missing persons, nd detecting hoplifters. ecurityhardware anges from imple home alarms to elaborate ystems f videosurveillance, ard access control, motion ensors, nd so on. Most secu-rity companies are small (the median staff ize is 10) but vary fromone-person irms o firms with over 1,000 employees. rivate ecurity sa substantial usiness. Guards and investigators lone outnumber olice

by more than two to one (Campbelland Reingold 1994).Although his s a case study f a single ndustry, hesecurity ndustryis fairly ypical f the ntensely ompetitive eripheral ector f privateenterprise. here is very ittle government egulation r self-regulationof private ecurity ompanies n Ontario; here re no industrywide tan-dards nor means of enforcing hem; evels of training re low; personal

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job security nd prospects or dvancement re weak; almost nyone anstart security ompany, nd small firms pring p and die at high rates.

Fields in the competitive rivate ector may well differ rom thers nthe way that culture works. n particular, uch fields estrict he scopefor high-status ulture. First, he relentless ressure f the market orcescompany wners nd managers o focus on business nd exclude rrele-vant displays of cultivation. econd, the shortage f larger firms withinternal abor markets estricts he use of education s a basis for hiringor promotion. f educationhas less value, there s less ncentive o signalbetter ducation by displaying hehigher ulture hat education helps toteach. Security n particular s a business ervicewith onsiderable eve-nue from ther rganizations, nd this lso encourages ndustry wnersand managers o stick to business s they work. Security workers mayhave more cope to display heir ulture way from work, but they havelittle ontact with oworkers ff he ob; 53% reported hat hey had seenno fellow workers way from work n the previous month.

At the end of this article, discuss how the game of culture maydiffer n other orts f fields. Meanwhile, note that this kind of field simportant. he service ector s now the argest art of the economy, ndthe competitive eriphery f the wholeprivate ector mploys ubstantialnumbers f people. If high-status ultural apital s excludedfrom uchfields, ather han simply laying lesser role than elsewhere, his s asocial fact with onsiderable mpirical cope and theoretical mportance.Further, ow-status ervice ndustries epresent apitalism n one of itsmost unfettered orms.Where nce we studied actories osee class strug-gle in achetypal form, now perhaps we should study McJobs n thesweated services o see exploitation t its clearest.

My research eam developed a list of security ompanies from he

Yellow Pages, a listing of licensed guard and investigator irms, ndpreliminary elephone hecks.Just ver 50% of firms till n business tthe time of our survey 161 companies) ooperated. n 150companies, tleast one owner or senior manager gave a personal nterview, o ouraccess to the upper classes of the industry was good. Access to otherswas more variable: some companies llowed no further ccess, some etus solicit volunteers hrough otices, ome let us approach employeesdirectly t work, and some let us take random amples from ompletepersonnel ists. Thus the sample is probably more representative t

higher-class evels, though he respondents re a diverse group drawnfrom ll class levels and types of security work. The 393 respondentsincluded 154 employees 70% men),46supervisors 69%men),80manag-ers 91% men), and 112owners 94% men). The survey was conductedbetween May 1991and January 992.

Life course variables nclude parental ducation nd class, respondent

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education, ast work career, nd current lass. Parental education ndclass variables have high evels of missing data but are important n

Bourdieu's rgument, o I included one variable with relatively oodresponse ates for ach parent. Mother's ducation s the number f yearsofformal chooling he completed. he rate of missing ata for his temis 22.7%, but the rate s much higher or mother's lass, since half of themothers ere housewives. Father's class is whether r not he was everself-employed. he rate of missing ata is 9.7%, while 23.9%have miss-ing data for father's ducation. found very similar results whetherthese ariables were ncluded r omitted o increase he number f casesavailable.Turning o the respondent, ducationwas the number f yearsofformal chooling ompleted. ast working ife ncludesyears f experi-ence n the security ndustry lus prior lass, or whether herespondentwas ever an owner or ever a manager before tarting ork t his or hercurrent ompany. Current lass is self-reported osition s an owner,manager, upervisor, r employee. More complex measures as in Wright1985) re not necessary n this ndustry, here lass position s very learwithin ompanies nd quite comparable between hem. Other forms finequality onsidered re race, nativity, nd gender. Respondentswerecoded nonwhite f the ethnic roup hey eltmost part of was Chinese,Japanese, Native Canadian, West ndian, African, orean, Vietnamese,East Indian, or Pakistani. Nativity s the country f birth, oded as adummy ariablefor Canada (nativeborn)versus ny other ountry. en-der was scored 1 for males, 0 for females. also include age aspart of early ife n the sense that older peoplehave had longer obuildup cultural knowledge nd social networks.

I developed new measure f network ariety or his tudy. Networkvariety s important ere becausecontact with different ypesof people

includes ontact with different ypes f culture, o it is crucial to definedifferent ypes f people n someway corresponding ocultural iffer-ences. Since cultural ifferences owith distinct ocations n socialstruc-ture DiMaggio 1987)and one of the most consequential orms f socialstructure s classstructure, choseto focus n classes and class fractions.Respondents eported whether heyknew people n each of 19 categoriesinspired y Wright's 1985) three major class dimensions: ontrol f prop-erty, ontrol f organizations, nd control f kill. nterviewers nstructedrespondents Now I am going to ask you whether ou know anyone n

a certain ine of work at all in the Toronto rea, for xample, whetheryou know any lawyers. Please count anyone you know well enough totalk to even if you are not close to them. f the respondent eportedknowing nyone n a category, he nterviewer lso asked whether e orshe knew a closefriend n that category nd whether e or she knew arelative. This allows measurement f variety n both weak ties knowing

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movies, nd restaurants) rominent n Bourdieu'swork. Erickson foundthat these genres did vary with class but were excluded from private

sector workplaces, where a businesslike ulture prevailed. decided tomodify he earlier genre cales to include more tems possibly elated obusiness n general and the security ndustry n particular. Further,wanted to go beyond the earlier tudy's focus on cultural apital, bothto reduce he discomfort elt y some respondents Erickson 1991,p. 264)and to probe the role of culture not related to class. I developed newitems n consultation ith key nformant ho had many years f variedexperience n the security ndustry.

For books, kept two Canadian and two English classics but addedmore popular thrillers, ciencefiction, nd action books, plus two bookscurrently n vogue with business people. For restaurants, created alargely ew scale with more ow-cost nd large-scale estaurants han theoriginal. asked whether espondents ad heard of or read each of 13books (reading a book scored 2, hearing of it scored 1, neitherscored 0 ). Details of all the tems used will be discussedbelow in theresults ection. asked whether eople had heard of or been to each of12 restaurants going o a restaurant cored 2, just having heard of tscored 1,, nd neither cored 0 ). For art, used 10 of the 20 artistsfrom he earlier tudy, which found he shorter ersion reliable havingheard of an artist cored 1,,, not having heard scored 0 ). I droppedmovies ince his cale had the weakest elationship oclass and the worstreliability Erickson 1991) to make room for wo new genres. One wasmagazines, a selection of business and high-circulation agazines in-tended to probe both business and popular culture. asked whetherrespondents ad read each of 15 magazines n the past six months yesscored 1, no scored 0 ). The second new genre was sports, whichexpected o be the topic most often iscussed t work. asked whetherpeople had heard of 15 prominent thletes rom variety f sports yesscored 1, no scored 0 ). The five genres chosen vary in their evelof cultural apital, from igh for rts and books to low for ports.

To probe the expression f culture n the workplace coded responsesto the open-ended uestion, What interests o you have in commonwith people at work? While respondents ould have interpreted hisquestion n many ways, their eplies uggest hey nswered n terms fshared tastes nd activities nsofar s these were revealed hrough ocial

interaction t work. Table 2 belowgivesa complete nventory f sharedinterests, hich re all suitable opics or onversation. ome respondentsclearly ndicated hat they were thinking f things hey alked about atwork. The reported elling, iscussing, ommunicating, alking, tc.)

Many of the variables were skewed and suitably ransformed eforecomputing orrelations r multiple egressions, ut tables showingmean

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Table 1 shows that the security ield ncludes many well-definedgenres, ncluding our hat are related o class ,ri2 = .13-27) and many

that re relatively eakly related o class with q2= .06 at most) or notrelated t all. So far as correlation ith class goes, several genres ouldplay a part n domination, nd several ould play a part n coordination,but only ome do get used, as the next ection ndicates. To understandwhich get used, we must go beyond orrelation lone.

Cultural candidates for use in domination nclude four class-relatedscales. Two of these touch on core elements f cultural apital n Bour-dieu's sense: art and books. Mainstream rt ncludes Robert Bateman,A. J. Casson, Salvador Dali, Cornelius Krieghoff, laude Monet, Henry

Moore, and Andy Warhol. These are relativelywidely known, conven-tionally pproved rtists who appear often n the media and in museums.Books includes rather widely known books, whether lassics (Pride

and Prejudice, Oliver Twist) or recent best-sellers Taipan, Burden ofProof) or a popular business uccess book (The Search for Excellence).Owners and managers know more about books and about art than dothe supervisors nd employees working below them, but, as I arguedabove, I do not expect hedominant lasses to use this particular ulturaladvantage in the workplace, where high-status ulture s out of placeaccording o the dominant rofit-oriented usiness ulture hat the own-ers and managers hemselves nsist upon.

More relevant, nd even more trongly elated o class, are two otherscales. Better estaurants ange from omechains that rise a bit abovefast food Fran's, The Keg, Licks, Old Spaghetti Factory), hroughlarge place with conventional ood and moderate prices Ed's), to oneformerly opular with the elite Winston's). Higher-class eople in thesecurity ndustry avemorediscretionary ime nd money or requentingsuch better estaurants nd can use them for doing business. Businessmagazines nclude magazines aimed directly t the business eader ingeneral the Economist, Financial Times, Forbes, Harvard BusinessRe-view)or n the security ndustry pecificallyCanadian Security, ecurityWorld). ike knowledge f better estaurants, amiliarity ith hese mag-azines has direct business usefulness nd can signal competence plusbusinesslike rientation imultaneously. hese two genres re much moreplausible candidates for use in domination han are books or art.

Turning to coordination, we find plenty f genres with little or no

relation o class, the criterion stressed bove. Closer nspection uggestssome other criteria hat help us to understand which of these genresactually get used to smooth relations n the workplace. Many of thesegenres re useless because all classes are equally ignorant bout them.Esoteric sports ncludes the athletes Ray Bourque, Rob Boyd, Matt

Dunigan, Roddy Piper, Aryton enna, Isaiah Thomas, and Tim Wal-

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lach. This is a scale of relatively soteric knowledge ypical f the truesports anor the fan of more obscure ports. The average respondent as

heard of three r four f these seven athletes, ompared o six or sevenout of the eight on the popular sports cale described below. Othergenres re even ess well known. Esoteric rt ncludes Helen Franken-thaler, Michael Snow, and Mary Pratt. While this s a poor scale (cx =.44), it seems o include ritically cclaimedbut poorly ublicized rtists.All classes had heard of a mean of about one-half f these three rtists,compared to means from hree to five on the mainstream rt scalewith maximum f seven. Means (seetable 1)are also low compared oscale maxima for Canadian books (Sunshine Sketches of a Little

Town, The Stone Angel, olomon Gursky Was Here; maximum core =6); action books (The Art of War, Dune, the Foundation trilogy, i-lence of the Lambs, Tommyknockers; aximum core = 10); electronicsmagazines Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics; maximum core =2); popular magazines Macleans, Playboy, Reader's Digest, ScientificAmerican, ports llustrated, aturday Night, Time; maximum core =7).

A popular, cross-class enre seful n coordinationmust be popular ntwo senses: ittle elated o class and well-known ithin ach class. Thisleaves us with two likely andidates: popular sports nd chain restau-rants. Popular sports ncludes thletes ery well known n the Torontoarea because they were Canadian success stories Kurt Browning, EricLindros, Elizabeth Manley, and Razor Ruddock) or played for majorToronto teams Roberto Allomar, Kelly Gruber, nd Rocket smail), orwere famous everywhere Martina Navratilova). The chains scale isbased on Burger King, Country Style Doughnuts, Kentucky FriedChicken, McDonald's, Tim Horton's Doughnuts. All classes score over11 out of a possible maximum f 12. Cheap fast food restaurants re notonly popular with most people but very popular ndeed among securitypeople, who work rregular ours for generally oor pay and who oftenwant anonymous laces for quick or covert meetings. However, chainslack one more thing useful n a coordinating enre: omething o talkabout. Chains are so standardized hat their onversational ossibilitiesend quickly, but popular sports offers ew developments ach day aswell as a rich history.

I concludeby pointing ut that hepattern f table 1alone can be read

as fully onsistent ith Bourdieu's xpectations. igher-class eople doknow more about some major forms f cultural capital. At the sametime, being n a field where economic apital counts far more than cul-tural capital, the level of high-status ultural knowledge s somewhatlimited. People know more about the more popular artists, books, orathletes han they know about the more esoteric tems familiar o a real

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connoisseur f such genres. This parallels the findings f Peterson ndSimkus 1992, pp. 162-63) on protective ervice ccupations, which had

below average rates of arts activities. urther, n the security ndustryclass differences re more striking or business genres than for morecultivated nes. But the mere associations etween lass and culture onot suffice o tell us how culture will actually get used in class relations.For this, we must dd other onsiderations, ncluding ome additions omy initial emphasis on the need for both culture related to class andculture nrelated o class.

Domination calls for genres hat are both correlated with class anddefined s relevant; n the security ield, his means businesslike opicsand not cultural apital, ven though oth re class correlated. oordina-tion calls for genres hat are well-known n all classes, nearly qual orequal between hem, nd rich n content; n the security orld, ports sthe most ikely andidate we have seen.

Inclusion of these genres n the survey was no accident: their keyrole in the security world was strongly uggested y preliminary ieldobservation nd discussions with key nformants. he next ection f thisarticle urns o more ystematic ata from he survey.

Genres t WorkOne of our open-ended urvey uestions sked What interests o youhave in common with people at work? People could only tell us ofshared nterests hey knew about, that s, tastes and activities evealedthrough onversations t work, which s ust what we would ike to knowabout.

Many employees ould not think f anything n commonwith owork-ers (table 2). The alienating ffect f poor working onditions nd re-wards, combinedwith imited ocial contacts, eep someemployees romengaging n much cultural xpression f any kind on the ob.

Work s the most common hared nterest, onsistent ith heprivatesector usiness ulture hat regards nything ut work s a waste of time(Erickson 1991), but classes vary dramatically n both evel and type ofshared work nterest. mployees do the least rewarding work and arethe east likely o see work as a common nterest. he common nterestis sometimes negative one ( telling horror tories ). Their comments

also tend o focus n their wn obs and the peoplethey ealwith directly( providing good service, watching each other's backs ) with onlytwo references o the company s a whole.

On the other hand, many owners and managers ee the work itselfas a major shared interest, escribed more positively nd with moreinvolvement. Both owners and managers often speak of teamwork

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TABLE 2

RESPONDENTS EPORTINGoPicSAS THINGS N COMMONWITHPEOPLEAT WORK,BY CLASS %)

Topic Employees Supervisors Managers Owners N

None* ............... ...... 20.5 7.1 5.2 7.1 41Work ............. ........ 34.1 57.1 63.6 66.3 183Sports ............... ...... 20.5 26.2 29.9 24.5 85Family .................. ... 10.6 4.8 10.4 14.3 38Hobbies .................... 5.3 11.9 11.7 7.1 28Politics .................. ... 7.6 9.5 10.4 5.1 27Life .......... ........... 9.8 2.4 3.9 7.1 24Sociallife .................... 6.8 4.8 2.6 10.2 23Books ............... ...... 3.0 11.9 3.9 2.0 14Music .................... 4.5 4.8 5.2 2.0 14Policing ..................... 3.0 7.1 2.6 2.0 11Outdoors ..................... 2.3 4.8 2.6 3.1 10Movies ................. .... 3.0 4.8 2.6 2.0 10Ideas and values ................ 3.8 2.4 2.6 2.0 10Homes ................. .... 1.5 4.8 2.6 .0 6Humor ................. .... 2.3 .0 2.6 .0 5Dogs ............ ......... 1.5 .0 .0 3.1 5

Dining .................... .8 2.4 .0 2.0 4Shared background ............ .8 .0 .0 3.1 4Recreation .................... .0 .0 2.6 2.0 4Entertainment .................. .8 4.8 1.3 .0 4Computers .................... 1.5 .0 1.3 .0 3People ............... ...... 1.5 .0 .0 1.0 3Television ..................... .8 .0 1.3 .0 2Travel ............... ...... .8 .0 .0 1.0 2Art .......... ........... .0 .0 1.3 .0 1Writing .................... .8 .0 .0 .0 1Shopping ..................... .0 2.4 .0 .0 1Pets .......... ........... .0 2.4 .0 .0 1Self-defense .................... .0 .0 .0 1.0 1N ........ ............. 132 42 77 98No response ..................... 23 4 2 14

*Twenty of the 23 employee onresponses re blanks n self-administered uestionnaires, nd somemay be equivalent to none. Eight of the 14 owner nonresponses ome from wners of one-personcompanies nd are equivalent o not applicable.

( We've got a good team here ), of sharing ompany goals and profes-

sionalism, nd of positive xpectations f their futures n the industry.Their interests n business magazines and better restaurants re sub-sumed under their nterests n work and do not get much attention stopics n their wn right. Very few people at any class level see diningas a common nterest, nd nonementionmagazines, ut both able 1and

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field bservation how that wners nd managers re active consumers fbusinesspublications nd better estaurants or businessmeetings.

Cultural apital makes only rare appearances n the security ndustry.Table 2 shows that only one person mentioned rt as something n com-mon (this unusual person's mother nce had an art gallery). Only 14people mentioned ooks, and higher-class eople were no more ikelythan others o mention ooks. Some of the other opics mentioned, ikemusic, may reflect ultural apital, but these lso are rarely mentioned,and there s no tendency or higher-class eople to mention hem moreoften. Of all the genres orrelated with class, only business genres reallowed much expression ecauseonly these are seen as relevant n theeyesof the powerful.

Among genres ound uncorrelated ith class (table 1), sports s strik-ingly popular. Sports re the most commonlymentioned hared nterestafter work tself nd are mentioned ar more often han other nonworkgenres. The topics that come closest n popularity re well behind nfrequency nd most are not really genres family, life, and sociallife concern he particulars f personal ives and hobbies ncludes awide variety f different obbies, with all but cars mentioned nlyonceor twice).Sports s both remarkably opular nd remarkably venlyspread across classes, with about one-fifth f the people in each classnaming ports s something n commonwith oworkers. t is the ack ofstrong lass effects nd the general popularity f sports hat are criticalhere: sports s so much a cross-class widespread nterest hat t is veryuseful n tending work relationships etween r within lasses.

Thus the correlation f culture with class is no predictor f the use ofculture n class relations t work. Higher lassesknow more bout somegenres, ike art, which they never mention t work. They know ittle f

anything more about another genre, ports,which

theynd

indeed allclassesdiscussoften recisely ecause it is a classless topic n which allcan participate qually. The distinction f a genre s also no guide to itsuse: books and art are distinguished enres ut excluded from he work-place, sports s a popular genrebut ncluded n many workplace nterac-tions.

Although heresults eported n this ection re striking, hey re basedon a single urvey uestion; here s clearly need for more research nhow cultural esources re used n the workingworld, esearch ncluding

both morevaried urvey uestions nd field bservation. Meanwhile, hesurvey results for this ndustry re consistent with my observations tthree ndustry onferences, my discussionswith several widely experi-encedkey nformants, nd the project nterviewers' bservations hroughinterviews, ncludingmany conducted t work sites.

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Network Diversity nd Class

Cultural variety s an important esource, incedifferent ypes f culturehave different ses: cultural apital pays off n education and in somekinds of work; business ulture nd cross-class ports ulture ay off na competitive rivate sector field. Cultural variety s related to class:higher-class eople know as much or more than others do about all thegenres xamined here, but much of what seems to be individual classeffectsmay be network ffects n disguise, ince class level and networkvariety re correlated. eople n higher ositions work more with peopleinstead of things, pan boundaries within nd between work organiza-tions, and take part in more social settings way from work, so theircontacts are more wide-ranging. rior surveys onsistently how thatnetwork ize and diversity ise with social status e.g., Marsden 1987;Lin and Dumin 1986).

Previous pproaches o network iversity, owever, re not structuralenoughfor work on the connections mong class, culture, nd networks.Previous surveys measure network variety n terms of the variety ofoccupational restige evels mong hose n one's network. restige evelscombine many occupations, nd occupations hemselves ombine manydifferent orts of obs in distinct arts of the working world. Prestigelevels do not identify istinct ocial settings hat can maintain ulturaldifferences, nd prestige evels do not correspondwell to class locations,so they an tell us little bout interclass elationships. hus I prefer odefine etwork iversity n terms f the number f distinct lass fractionsto which a person has ties see the methods ection bove for details).

Most prior urveys re also limited o a small number f close ties uchas several ntimates Wellman 1982), everal onfidantes Marsden 1987),or a few dozen potential upporters Fischer 1982). ntimate ies are usta small fraction f a network, which averages about 1,400 people inNorth America Killworth t al. 1990).Worse still, ntimate ies are theones east ikely oprovide culturally timulating low f nonredundantinformation. he closer people are, the more similar hey end to be intheir ocial locations nd their esources Granovetter 973;Burt 1992),so it is the weaker ties that connect s to the greatest ariety f classesand of culture.

The connection etween lass, strength f tie, and network iversity

is shown in table 3. Note that weaker ties give substantially reateraccess to a variety f classes. Peoplehave relatives n only bout two ofthe classes included n our survey tem. They have friends n twice tothree imesmore classesthan they have relatives. And they have ties ofany strength, ncluding heir weakest ties, n twice as many classes asthey can reach through riends.Note also that class differences n net-

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TABLE 3

CLASS AND NETWORK DIVERSITY: MEAN NUMBER OF CLASSES IN WHICHRESPONDENT

KNOWS SOMEONE, BY RESPONDENT'S CLASS

Current Class Knows a Relative Knows a Close Friend Knows Anyone

Employee ..................... 2.3 4.4 9.4Supervisor .................... 2.1 5.0 10.4Manager ...................... 2.3 6.2 13.0Owner ......................... 2.5 7.9 14.7F ......... ......... .50 16.21* 45.01*N .......... ......... 384 385 384

2 .............................. .00 .11 .26

*P < .01.

work variety lso vary with the strength f the tie considered. eople ofall classes have about the same number f kin and all tend to have kinsimilar o themselves, o all classes are equally restricted n the range oftheir kin ties. The structural dvantages of higher-class ocation showup more for friends nd, most of all, for the whole network. urveysconfined o stronger ies greatly nderestimate he extent o which classis correlated with arger, icher etworks.

Network Diversity nd GenresIf weaker ties nclude contacts with wider range of classes, they mustbring wider information bout those genres that are related to class.Table 4 shows simple correlations etween familiarity ith each of thesubgenres ntroduced n table 1 on the one hand, and network iversityof all three kinds kin, friend, nyone) on the other. The top sectionshows those subgenres hat we found more related o class. The resultsare powerful, imple, nd consistent: etwork iversity s positively e-lated to familiarity ith ll five lass-linked enres, nd the relationshipgets stronger s the tie considered ets weaker. If we consider he fullrange of networks, ot ust the ntimate enters, hen who you know andwhat you know are strikingly orrelated.

The rows under other genres n table 4 show those subgenres hatwe found o be less related o class and, indeed, not related o class at

all in most cases. Most of these subgenres re less related to networkclass diversity han are the corresponding lass-linked ubgenres. Thepattern sparticularly learfor he most mportant orm f network iver-sity, lass diversity n the whole network. The shared variance R2) is.07 for popular sports ut 03 for soteric ports; 13 for mainstream rtbut .04 for esoteric rt; .14 for books but .02 for ction books; .20 for

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TABLE 4

CORRELATIONSBETWEEN NETWORK DIVERSITY AND KNOWLEDGEOF GENRES

No. OF CLASSESN WHICH RESPONDENTKNOWSSOMEONE

KNOWLEDGE F GENRES Knowsa Relative Knows Close Friend Knows Anyone

Class-related enres:Popular sports ................. .14*** .15*** .27***Mainstream rt ................. .11** .12*** .36***Books ...................... .06 .19*** .37***Better estaurants ............ .21*** .31*** .45***

Businessmagazines ........... 10** .31*** .41***Other genres:Esoteric ports ................. .12*** .09** .18***Esoteric rt ..................... .05 .14*** .21***Canadian books ................ .08* -.01 .10**Actionbooks .................... .11** .5 .15***Chain restaurants ............. .08* .07* .18***Electronicsmagazines ........ .10** .09** .05Popular magazines 0............ 5 .18*** .21***

NOTE.These are pairwise orrelations; inimum = 376;all the ignificanceevels re one-tailed.*P < .10.

**p < .05.***P < .01.

better estaurants ut .03 for hains; 17 for businessmagazinesbut .04for popular magazines.

Thus the class-linked enres re linked not ust to personal lass loca-tion but also to personal ontacts anging hroughout heupper reachesof the class structure. he network f ties hat inks elatively dvantagedpeople also nourishes he varieties of culture hat advantaged people

more often know, and this s true for all five of the more class-linkedsubgenres, ven f hey re not very trongly inked o class at the ndivid-ual level (as for sports) nd even if they are not distinguished as forsports, estaurants, nd business magazines).Diverse networks ncour-age cultural mnivores, ot specialists n distinguished ulture nor spe-cialists n culture pecific ohigher lasses.

The apparent ink between network iversity nd cultural diversity,however, may be misleading incenetworks nd culture oth have rootsin classtrajectory, ducation, nd other orms f nequality. A life ourse

analysisof the roots of culture will give a clearer view.

Genres nd the Life Course:Early LifeIn criticizing ourdieu earlier, argued that he overestimates he effectof parental lass on culture, hat he treats ifferent spects of class from

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TABLE 6

KNOWLEDGE OF MAINSTREAM ART: STANDARDIZED MULTIPLE REGRESSIONS USING

PREDICTORS FROM EARLY LIFE, PAST WORK LIFE, AND CURRENT LIFE

Early Life,Early Life and Past Work,

Predictors Early Life Past Work and Current ife

Born in Canada ................... .174*** .155*** .147**Nonwhite .......................... -.244*** -.204*** -. 181***Male .......................... .019 -.039 -.031Age .................. ........ .326*** .201*** .242***Mother's ducation ............... .134** .119* .150***Father elf-employed ............ .048 .039 .036Own education .................... .240*** .25 1*** .212***Security xperience . .196*** .087Former wner .032 .026Former manager . 071 .004Owner .038Manager . .093Supervisor .002Network variety .204***Adjusted R2 ........................ .222*** .250*** .279***N .......................... 291 291 291

NOTE.All pairs of R2 values differ ignificantly P < .01).*P < .10.

**p < .05.***P < .01.

whole, only onsider his network ariable. Obviously heseregressionssimplify more omplex ife tory n which networks uild culture, oth

help people to get better obs, better obs add richness o networks ndculture, nd so on in a lifelong et of feedbacks.Though simplified s much s possible, heregressions nclude nough

variables to reduce the sample size considerably from he original 393to ust under 300; see tables 5-9). The variables with hehighestmissingdata rates are mother's ducation and whether ather was ever self-employed see methods section above). These theoretically mportantvariables must be included n the tables and including hem does notchangemajor results or ther ariables. n particular, etwork iversity

is strongly elated to genre knowledgewith or without ontrols or allthe other variables n these regressions cf. tables 5-9 with table 4).Let us first onsider he relative mportance f early ife as a whole,

by comparing heR2 for hesevariables the first olumn of tables 5-9)to the R2 for ll the ife course variables considered the ast column oftables 5-9). Where Bourdieu tends to emphasize a pervasive effect f

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TABLE 7

KNOWLEDGE OF BOOKS: STANDARDIZED MULTIPLE REGRESSIONS USING PREDICTORS

FROM EARLY LIFE, PAST WORK LIFE, AND CURRENT LIFE

Early ife,Early ife nd Past Work,

Predictors Early ife Past Work and Current ife

Born in Canada ................... .009 - .011 - .018Nonwhite ........................... - . 126** - .086 - .061Male .......................... - .099* - .154*** - . 136**Age .................. ........ .315*** .190*** .247***Mother's ducation ............... - .111* .097* .136***Father self-employed ............. -.010 -.018 -.030Own education .................... .277*** .288*** .232***Security xperience .204*** .068Former wner .022 .031Former manager .062 - .033Owner - 034Manager . 124*Supervisor -.029Network variety .323***Adjusted R2 ........................ .132*** .158*** .245***N .......................... 299 299 299

NOTE.-All pairs fR2values iffer ignificantlyP < .01).*P < .10.

**P < .05.***P < .01.

early ife on habitus, these data show considerable ifferences etweengenres. The early ife variables explain 80% as much as the whole setof variables for rt, 74% as much for ports, 0% as much for books or

better estaurants, nd 41%as much for businessmagazines.Differencesbetween he R2 values for early ife, early ife plus past work, and thefull et of variables are almost ll significant see tables 5-9).

Where Bourdieu stresses he role of cultural apital n class reproduc-tion, with higher-class arents giving hildren igher-class ulture hathelps them ogain higher-class tatus, hesedata show no consistent inkbetween the utility f a genre and the genre's rootedness n early ife.Sports, better estaurants, nd business magazines re all good things oknow bout n the private ector workplace, ut sports s far more ightly

tied to early ife han s knowledge f businessmagazines.Art nd booksare useless n security ork, but art s far more ightly iedto early ife.The life course timing f genre knowledge epends on the social scriptfor what people do at various life stages: playing sports and talkingsports n youth, tudying rt and books n schoolsbut eating n currentlyavailable restaurants nd reading current ooks. Timing also depends

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TABLE 8

KNOWLEDGE OFBETTER RESTAURANTS: STANDARDIZED MULTIPLE REGRESSIONS

USING PREDICTORS FROM EARLY LIFE, PAST WORK LIFE, AND CURRENTLIFE

Early Life,Early Life and Past Work,

Predictors Early Life Past Work and Current ife

Born in Canada ................... .241*** .206*** .188***Nonwhite .......................... -.249*** -. 194*** -. 147***Male .......................... -.010 -.115** -.129**Age ................. ......... .217*** -.005 .046Mother's ducation ............... .109* .081 .130**

Father self-employed ............ .042 .027 .040Own education .................... .125** .142*** .079Security experience .340*** .134*Former owner . .036 .028Former manager .157*** .053Owner .262***

Manager . 192***Supervisor .052Network variety .209***Adjusted R2 ........................ .192*** .300*** .374***N .......................... 287 287 287

NOTE.-All pairs of R2 values differ ignificantlyP < .01).*P < .10.

**P < .05.***P < .01.

on the relative mportance f classic,certified ulture as in mainstreamart) that holds ts value over time versus ulture whosevalue lies n beingup-to-date as in businessmagazines).

Where Bourdieu tresseshe

mportancef

parental lass,these ables

show no difference etween hosewith self-employed ather nd thosewithout ne. (In results not shown, found no effect or father's duca-tion nor for father's class-employee, supervisor, manager, self-employed-when the respondent was 16 years old). Class effects romearly ife are limited o mother's ducation and one's own education.Whether r not we control or ater ife experiences, hose with moreeducated mothers r more education f their wn know more bout themore distinguished enres art and books, tables 6 and 7), which re ust

those genres mbedded n school curricula. More educated people alsoknow more about the other genres, hough he effect s sometimes ndi-rect; or xample,more ducatedpeoplehave no advantage n knowledgeof popular sports nce we control or ecurity xperience table 5). Weoften hink f education s a proxy orclass location or as part of classreproduction ut should not forget hat he world of education s quite a

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TABLE 9

KNOWLEDGE OF BUSINESS MAGAZINES: STANDARDIZED MULTIPLE REGRESSIONS USING

PREDICTORS FROMEARLY LIFE, PAST WORK LIFE, AND CURRENT LIFE

Early ife,Early ife nd Past Work,

Predictors Early ife Past Work and Current ife

Born in Canada ................... -.093 -.117** -.143***Nonwhite .......................... . 127** -.069 -.007Male ..................... ..... .202*** .092 .065Age .......................... .191*** .007 .056Mother's ducation ............... .063 .032 .080Father self-employed ............. .002 -.024 -.001Own education .................... .249*** .261*** .180***Security xperience . .203*** -.037Former wner .138** .124**Former manager .228*** .102*Owner .342***Manager .313***Supervisor .102*Network variety .202***AdjustedR2 ........................ .152*** .265*** .372***N .......................... 291 291 291

NOTE.-All pairs fR2 values iffer ignificantlyP < .01).*P < .10.

**P < .05.***P < .01.

different ield rom he world of work and has a different et of connec-tions o culture.

Moreover, hesedata suggest onsiderable mportance orother ormsof inequality hat operate from arly ife onward: birthplace, ace, andgender. People born n Canada have many more years than the foreignborn to learn details of ocal culture, o they have a considerable dvan-tage n knowledge f ports, rt, nd restaurants. his advantage persistseven when we control or ater ife xperiences tables 5, 6, and 8). Theforeign orn can catch up most asily n the codified nd accessibleworldof print, nd they know as much as natives do about books (table 7)while hey ctually ay more ttention obusinessmagazines hannativesin comparable current ocations table 9). Nonwhites know less than

whites bout all five genres, hough many of the differences ade whenwe control or work areers nd social networks tables5-9). This patternsuggests ifelong roblems f racist xclusion romworkplaces nd net-works rich n mainstream ulture see also Breton t al. 1990).

Men and women have different ultural specialties Collins 1992).Some differences eem rooted n gender aps acrossthe ife ourse, ince

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these differences ersist espite ll controls:men know more bout sports(table 5) and women bout books table 7). But if men read more business

magazines, hat s because they re more ikely obe owners r managers;gender ifferences anish when we control or work history table 9). Onthe other hand, controls eveal one later-blooming ender difference ntable 8: women know more about restaurants, llowing for heir ower-class position. Dining out for pleasure s a particular leasure for thosewho often ook and clean up at home, and women often manage a fam-ily's eisure ocial events. Although my focus s on direct lass relationsin the workplace and the role of wide connections o classes throughsocial networks, eisure ife lso plays a part n cultural epertoires.

Age brings greater knowledge f most genres. This is partly becauseage gives some people time to move up to higher-class ositions wherebusiness ulture s more useful seetables 8 and 9, where heage advan-tage in knowledge of restaurants nd magazines vanishes when workhistory s controlled). ge is also useful n giving ime o build up knowl-edge of distinguished enres books and art) with deep institutional ootsthat help old knowledge tay valued (see tables 6 and 7, where the ageadvantage persists espite ll controls).

Overall, the results remind us that all forms f structural ivisioncontribute o cultural differences. lass alone can never tell the wholestory f culture see also Hall 1992), and different orms f inequalityhave different egrees f relevance or various genres. Advantaged peo-ple tend to get advantages n genre knowledge, oo, but not across theboard. The effects f various forms f nequality how different atternsfor ach of the five genres onsidered bove, and looking t more genreswould probably eveal more variations.

Looking at inequalities ther than class helps us to understand hemultiple oots f genre knowledge. t also leads to some mportant ddi-tions o my earlier discussions f the role of popular sports n the work-place. If we look at class alone, sports s a relatively lassless genre sefulin coordinating iesbetween lasses. Table 5 lends further upport o thisview. Sports knowledge s nearly classless it is unrelated o mother'seducation nd father's lass and weakly related o one's own educationbefore ontrols while unrelated fter). ports knowledge eems to growwith chancesto use it at work knowledge s greater or hosewho havebeen in the security ield onger nd who have become managers, he

class most responsible or nterclass elations). ut, if we turn rom lassto other orms f nequality, we see that ports knowledge ontributes odomination n these even while it contributes o coordination etweenclasses.Men and the native born know a good deal more about sports,controls r no controls, nd the security ndustry s male dominated tevery class level (the percentage male runs from 70% of employees o

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91% of owners). Sports talk can link the male majorities n all classesbut excludes women, which may be one more reason for ts popularity

in a very macho industry. eturning riefly o the question, What doyou have in commonwith peopleat work? t is interesting onote thatmen cite sports wice s often s womendo (27% vs. 13%) while womenmore often ite books 8% vs. 3%). Two other differences uggest hatwomen are marginalized n the workplace flow of talk and culture:women more often ay they have nothing n common with people atwork (19% vs. 10%) and they ess often ite work itself s a sharedinterest 38% vs. 56%). The native born re also in the majority n everyclass, barely 57%) for mployees ut more clearly 70%) for ach of thethree more powerful lasses, and sports alk also reinforces heir dvan-tage n the workplace.Companiesneed cross-class oordination, ut thisdoes not have to include everyone f it includes groups that dominatewithin ll classes.

Sports culture handicaps women and the foreign orn all the morebecause, as we have seen, sports knowledge as roots arly n life. True,motivated people can learn a lot about sports by simply reading thenewspapers t any time n life, but a long history f attention o a genredevelopsa cognitive ramework hat makes new details easier to assimi-late, so that just reading he sports news s more nformative or hosewho already know more about sports. Still more, those who start arlyhave a great dvantage n personal historical xperience. hey not onlyknow that Paul Henderson cored hebig goal n the 1972 Canada-Soviethockey eries, they watched him do it and remember where they wereat the time, nd quite a few of them were hockeyplayers hemselves rplayed some other port. Native-born Canadian men can share manymemories f personal sports experiences.These shared memories uelinterest n sports s a topic relevant o the self nd act as a kind of ticketof entry osports onversations y showing uthentic nvolvement.

Genres nd the Life Course:Working ifeThough parental lass has remarkably ittle o do with genreknowledge,one's own class trajectory nd working xperience re more mportant.The number of years of experience n the security ndustry oes withgreater nowledge f all five genres tables 5-9). This effect s probably

not specific o security work: adult employment f all kinds tends toexpand opportunities o consume ulture nd to learn more ulture romone's expanding ocial network. Once we control for social networksand current lass, the effect f sheer xperience anishes. Beyond sheerexperience s passageof time, past experience f command ositions oeswith more knowledge of just those genres directly seful n business

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management. hus past owners nd managers ead more businessmaga-zines (table 9), and past managers know more about restaurants table

8), but past owners nd managers o not know any more han others oabout sports, rt, or books tables 5-7). Better amiliarity ith businessculture may help people to get or keep higher-class osition nd to enrichtheir networks, o the effects f past ownership nd management anishwhen current lass and social network ariety re controlled tables 8and 9).

In terms f current lass location, owners nd managers know moreabout each of the five genres we are now examining table 1), but thisdoes not necessarily mean that higher-class eople know more becauseof their higher lass itself. To the contrary, urrent igh class in itselfshould only ncrease he kinds of genreknowledge hat owners nd man-agers encounter nd practice n their work. Once we control or othersources f culture, ncluding ocial network ariety, we find hat currentowners and managers know substantially more about the specificallybusiness-related enres better estaurants nd magazines, tables 8 and9) but not about the distinguished enres hat the dominant lasses ex-clude from work art and books, tables 6 and 7). Sports knowledge s amore ubtle ase. On the one hand, talking ports s useful n cross-classcoordination nd hence useful o owners nd managers, nd in particularto managers, who of all classes spend the most time talking o those attheir wn evel and those bove and belowas well. This is probablywhymanagers know more han others bout sports, net of all controls table5), but, on the other hand, the very use of sports o coordinate mpliesthat people at all levels are included n sports onversations, o the useof this genre obridge lass gaps also maintains hevery ow correlationbetween class and this genre. Class has little o do with sports, while

other factors ike gender, native birth, nd networks matter more table5).Thus the strongest f the class differences n genre knowledge, hat s

knowledge f restaurants nd businessmagazines, s directly elated oclass differences n what people do at work. What a banal finding hisis, compared to Bourdieu's more subtle and counterintuitive rgumentrelating lass and distinction. lass culture s to a considerable egreeactually bout class, with higher-class eople consuming orms f culturethat have direct pplication n their obs.

Now that we have reviewed several different omponents f classacrossthe ife ourse,note how differently hey elate o culture. arentalclass had no effect n the five genres.Mother's ducation nd one's owneducation acilitated earning f all five, whether irectly r through aterlife experiences.One's own class, past or present, s directly elated toonly some genres: he ones that higher-class eople use more at work

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than lower-class people do. If we want to understand how class andculture re related, we must decomposeboth culture nd class into more

specific omponents.

Genres nd the Life Course: Network VarietyThere is only one form f advantage that s an advantage for all fivegenres with all other possible sources held constant. This persistentlypowerful ourceof culture s not class, nor any other orm f nequalityconsidered here, but social network iversity. n this survey we askedpeople whether hey knew anyone t all in each of 19 locations drawnfrom Wright's 1985) major class dimensions: ontrol f property, rgani-zations, r skills see details bove). Each of these ocations sa somewhatseparate ocial setting with ts own cultural mix. Any contact with ucha setting, ven f t s ust an acquaintancewith ne person n that etting,provides a channel of access to the distinctive ultural repertoire. hemore diverse he set of such contacts ne has, the more variety f cultureone will encounter nd hence maintain r learn. Social networks re thecontinuing dult education of culture, nd diversified etworks re theliberal rts programs eaching little f almost verything. hus networkvariety s one important ourceof cultural ariety.

The role of networks helps us to understand why culturally ariedpeople (or omnivores ) have such different inds of cultural variety(Peterson 1992).Omnivores re alike only n the arge number f tastesand practices hat heyhave, not n having he ame tastes nd practices.This leaves us wondering why one omnivore may choose one culturalmix while another hooses omething uite different. art of the answerlies in the varied networks hat help generate aried culture ince two

people with equally varied networks an have contacts n two differentcombinations f structural ocations, hence access to distinct ulturalinputs. As Simmel 1955) observed ong ago, complex modern socialstructures enerate reat numbers f social circles, nd each individualhas a unique combination f ocial circlememberships. eople with manysocial circles have great network ariety nd great cultural variety utdo not share any one profile f contacts nor of culture. This reinforcesthe value of cultural variety ince those who know more have a greaterchance of finding ommon roundwith hose hey eal with, despite he

fact that these people have no predictable et of cultural nterests.

DISCUSSIONThis article has expanded nd modified ourdieu's rgument y ookingharder t two aspectsof social structure: ocial networks nd class struc-

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ture n the workplace. At work, the uses of culture re more complexthan Bourdieu leads us to expect. He expects that culture correlated

with lass, especially igh-status ulture, elpshigher lassesto dominatelower ones, but, in fact, correlation ith class is not the same as use-fulness n class relations. ome forms f culture orrelated with class donot get used in the private ector ecause they re profitless rrelevanciesthat the upper classes themselves xclude through heir ntent ocus ondoing business. High-status ulture n particular s ust such an excludedwaste of time n the businessworld. Business ulture tself upports omi-nation. Meanwhile, profitable work organizations need coordinationwithin and between classes as well as domination. Culture useful ncoordination s uncorrelated r almost uncorrelated ith class, popularin every class, and rich enough to provide njoyable conversation, utthe culture hat ntegrates lassesmay reinforce ther kinds of nequali-ties. The sports alk that inks native-born men n all levels of securitywork simultaneously xcludes he female nd foreign-born inorities neach class.

How might ulture work n other kinds of work organizations?Nodoubt high-status ulture laysa greater ole n many organizations ut-side the competitive rivate ector. There s more room for alk withoutan immediate usiness sein organizations essexposed o market orces,for xample,government ureaucracies nd universities. igh-status ul-ture has more value as a signal of education n organizations hat useeducation s a basis of admission nd promotion, or xample, n largerprivate ector rganizations ith nternal abor markets s well as muchof the public ector. High-status ulture s more work related n organiza-tions hat produce or market t, especially n public sector rganizationslike schools rather han market-sensitive rivate ector rganizations ikepublishing houses, and high-status ulture s more

observable,hence

perhaps more mportant, wherever eople meet each other way fromwork as well as just on the ob.

All these kinds of organizations, owever, till need both dominationand coordination. Academia, a familiar ield hat provides arge scopefor high-status ulture for all the reasons cited above, illustrates hispoint. Academicsdo spend lot more work ime alking bout cultivatedtopics than security wners nd managers o, but academics also spendconsiderable ime on displays of their quivalent of business culture,

for example, displays of familiarity ith academic ournals instead ofbusiness magazines).Academics lso engage n coordinating alk acrosslevels from distinguished rofessor o humble student. Sometimes hecommon ulture sed is even sports, nd sometimes omen nd foreign-born students eel cut out of the oop by such talk. The weight placedon different ultural enres aries, but the general se of culture n class

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is similar. This is a very Bourdieu-like ontention ince he emphasizesthe underlying imilarity f cultural ames n superficially ifferent ields,

but the common game describe s a more complicated ne, even at thelevel of the ndividual field.Within field, more than one kind of culture s useful. Since fields

emphasizevarying enres, varied knowledge f culture s even moreuseful or hosewho cross between ields. Those who span fields endtobe higher-class eople, who more ften epresent heir ome organizationto the outsideworld nd who more ften re mobile mong rganizations.The more varied their ulture, he more ffectively hey an bridge rga-nizational and field boundaries. Thus the most useful overall culturalresource s variety plus a well-honed nderstanding f which genre touse in which etting.

To the extent hat nything n my nalysis eplaces high-status ulturein Bourdieu's analysis, my cultural variety eplaces his distinction,but the changes suggest re not quite so simple. argue that we neednot one master variable for culture but several variables: high-statusculture, ield-specific orms f dominating nd coordinating ulture, ndcultural variety. We also need multiple lass variables since differentforms f culture have differing elationships o parental lass, parentaleducation, one's own education, nd one's past and present lass posi-tions.

Not only s the effect f class trajectory n culture more complex hanBourdieu mplies, t is weaker as well. Many genres have stronger ootsin other ocial cleavages, ncluding he other orms f nequality tudiedhere: gender, race, and nativity. ince each structurally istinct roupcan carry somewhat ifferent ultural epertoire, he most onsistentlypowerful ource of cultural knowledge s contact with people in a wide

variety f social ocations. The strongest ingle ourceof cultural arietyis social network variety. Unlike Bourdieu, who gives mere glancingreferences o social capital, argue that network ariety s more mpor-tant than class as a source of cultural ariety.

My research s confined o a North American ndustry nd Bourdieu'sto a survey f France, so national differences ay underlie ome of thedifferences n our views. Lamont 1992)finds ome differences n uses ofculture y upper-class men n France and the United States nd providesan insightful iscussion f structural ifferences etween he two coun-

tries. But she too finds many easons o modify ourdieu's nalysis, venfor France itself. We need more comparative esearch hat ncludes hetwo structural hemes tressed n this article: ocial networks nd classrelations n specific ields.

Two lines of questioning re especially mportant. irst, ust how donetworks ontribute o cultural resources? have argued that contact

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Culture, Class, And Connections

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