European Sociological Review VOLUME 20 NUMBER 4 SEPTEMBER 2004 333–344 333

DOI:10.1093/esr/jch028, available online at www.esr.oupjournals.org

European Sociological Review vol. 20 no. 4 © Oxford University Press 2004; all rights reserved

Cultural Capital and Social Inequality in the Life Course Werner Georg

In many surveys, such as PISA, the German educational system shows a strong social inequality, particularly in the transition to higher education (‘Gymnasium’) and to university. Above all, rational choice models and approaches from conflict theory are used as tools for the explanation of these findings. In this contribution, the capital theory of Pierre Bourdieu is tested on the basis of a follow-up survey, which refers to the ages between sixteen and thirty-five. As a result it can be shown that there is a substantial reproduction effect by the transmission of cultural capital in the family.

Theory According to the theory of social inequality, educationalachievement plays a crucial role in the transmission ofsocial status between generations and in status selectionduring the life course. Classical path models, for exam-ple Blau and Duncan (1967: 170), have demonstratedwith respect to different cohorts and countries howparental background influences the level of educationand occupational status. This kind of analysis providesinformation on the fluidity of mobility processes on thehistorical and intercultural levels. However, the questionremains of what factors influence the different degrees ofstatus transmission and social inequality on the level offamilies and to what extent these factors have an impacton subjects’ further life trajectories.

An important goal of the recent PISA study (DeutschesPISA-Konsortium, 2001) was to measure the degree ofsocial inequality in the educational systems of differentcountries. The study distinguished among the socialstructures of the 32 participating countries depending ontheir position in the lowest and highest quartiles of theInternational Socio Economic Index (ISEI) (Ganzeboomet al., 1992) and compared the means of test scores forreading literacy for both quartiles. It showed that the

differences for both groups were highest for Germany(111 score points) and lowest for Japan (27). In Europe,Finland (53) and Iceland (50) were the countries withthe lowest inequality in this relation, whereas Belgium(106), Switzerland (106) and the United Kingdom (102)ranked highest (Deutsches Pisa-Konsortium 2001: 384f).With a difference of 97 score points, the United Statesoccupied rank 8. The correlation between reading liter-acy and ISEI was 0.41 for Germany and ranged between0.40 for the countries with the highest inequality, as men-tioned above, and around 0.20 for Iceland and Finland.

In the case of Germany, the country with the highestsocial inequality in this regard, the calculation of morecomplex models has made it possible to evaluate the causalstructure of this process. With logistic regression, it wasfound that the probability of attending a ‘Gymnasium’was 4.3 times higher for children belonging to the upperservice class (defined by the class model of Erikson et al.1979) than it was for the children of skilled labourers.Even controlling for cognitive ability and reading liter-acy, this probability remained three times as high(Deutsches PISA-Konsortium, 2001: 357).

Other surveys support the findings of the PISA study.Allmendinger and Aisenbrey (2002) describe the socialselection of the educational system as a sequential process

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that develops along certain ‘junctions’: the probabilitythat a working-class child will obtain higher educationis 28 per cent, but only 6 per cent of this group aresuccessful in making the transition to a university. Incontrast, 73 per cent of all children whose parents arecivil servants succeed in making the transition to highereducation, and 49 per cent go on to attend a university(Allmendinger and Aisenbrey, 2002: 47). To obtain arecommendation for higher education, a pupil nor-mally needs to score an average of 78 points on an apti-tude test. However, there are great differences amongdifferent social strata: a child whose father graduatedfrom a ‘Gymnasium’ needs only 65 points, while a childwhose father failed to complete school is likely toobtain a recommendation only with a score of 98 ormore points.

Since the late 1980s, complete data have no longer beenavailable on the probability of different educational andoccupational groups being able to attend a university.This is because, for reasons of data privacy, the corre-sponding question is no longer included on the matricu-lation form. Using data for the winter term of 1987/88,Köhler (1990) showed that only 1.9 per cent of the childrenof unskilled laborers attended a university (all workers: 4.5per cent), while 81.7 per cent of the children of profes-sionals did so. Additionally, 67.3 per cent of childrenwhose fathers were civil servants, and 58.3 per cent ofthose whose fathers held white-collar jobs (both withhigher education), were successful in obtaining admissionto a university.

While these results underscore the persistence ofsocial inequality in educational systems, the questionremains as to what factors on the family level contribute tomaintaining these inequalities. A generalized capital the-ory, originally developed by Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieuand Passeron, 1971; Bourdieu, 1983, 1986), might be ableto explain these results. Bourdieu distinguishes threekinds of capital: economic capital, cultural capital andsocial capital. He uses the metaphor of ‘capital’ insteadof ‘resources’ to avoid having to split the social worldinto an instrumentally oriented economic sphere and an‘innocent’ cultural sphere focusing solely on ‘l’art pourl’art’—art for art’s sake. Capital theory assumes that cul-tural capital is a means for the transmission of social sta-tus and can be converted into both economic and socialcapital. Stated more generally, all kinds of capital can bemutually converted.

Cultural capital is differentiated into three sub-types:incorporated cultural capital, institutionalized culturalcapital and objective cultural capital. It takes a long timefor incorporated cultural capital to accumulate; this

process taking place during early childhood in the familyof origin. According to this theory, elements of the life-world, such as antique furniture, original art works, clas-sical music, a private library, photo-wallpaper showing asunrise at the seashore, popular music and yellow pressliterature, determine the primary perception and devel-opment of evaluative and cognitive schemes in the child.Institutionalized cultural capital is a result of educa-tional achievements in educational institutions with thepower to define what is ‘important’ and ‘unimportant’knowledge. This is transmitted in a rational, controlledand explicitly defined way, as outlined in the curriculaof educational institutions. Finally, objective culturalcapital refers to artifacts in the cultural field, such asbooks, artworks, or the possession of special musicalinstruments, etc.

How can social inequality in the educational systembe explained using the concept of cultural capital? At thestart of their educational careers, pupils have differentamounts of incorporated cultural capital and possess acertain habitus consistent with this capital. However, theprimary school operates on the assumption of equalityin starting conditions and treats pupils with differentamounts of cultural capital as though they really had anequal starting position. Although cultural capital issocially constructed in special spheres of the social struc-ture, it is treated by the school as a ‘natural’ aptitude ofpupils. Such mystification means that classes with a highlevel of cultural capital are able to transmit their status ina socially legitimate way. School success signifies, for thiskind of reasoning, that the habitus of the family of originincludes everything needed in school for the develop-ment of adequate learning behaviour and feelings ofself-efficacy.

Empirical Findings Criticisms of Bourdieu’s theory of capital and its repro-duction have arisen from several types of empiricalresearch. The empirical findings of research conductedby Bourdieu himself are, in fact, limited to bivariate cor-relations between the status of the family of origin andcultural practices or school success.

To confirm the reproduction theory, there wouldhave to be: firstly, a theoretically grounded measurementof indicators for cultural capital; secondly, evidence ofthe transmission of cultural capital between the genera-tions; and thirdly, a substantial effect of this incorpo-rated cultural capital on measures of school success oroccupational status.

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE 335

So far, research has been conducted only on the partsof this causal chain that have been surveyed, and forsome data, the quality of the measurements is quite poor.

Di Maggio (1982) and Di Maggio and Mohr (1985)tried to test Bourdieu’s assumptions and Max Weber’stheory of status culture (1972). The data used in theiranalysis was derived from the TALENT project, con-ducted by Jencks et al. (1960). The sample contained1472 male and 1479 female students, who were surveyedin different school types during the 11th form. Culturalcapital was measured with reference to factors such asinterest in attending symphony orchestra concerts, partic-ipation in theater groups and in artistic activities, seriousreading and a cultivated self-image. This measure wasused as an explanatory variable for grades achieved invarious subjects. The father’s educational achievementand linguistic abilities were used as control variables inthe equation. The strongest influence was found ongrades in English. In contrast, only linguistic ability(0.22 for boys and 0.28 for girls) and cultural capital(0.17 and 0.22) displayed a significant influence, whilethe father’s educational background proved insignifi-cant. In addition, two competing hypotheses weretested, the ‘reproduction hypothesis’ and the ‘mobilityhypothesis’. The first hypothesis refers to the monopoli-zation of cultural capital as an indicator of the statusculture of the upper classes; the second hypothesisassumes that cultural capital can be used by the lowerclasses as a means of upward mobility. The reproductionhypothesis was confirmed only for female respondents(effect of cultural capital for all subjects: 0.16 in the low-est group in terms of father’s educational achievementand 0.30 in the highest), whereas the effects for malerespondents in all three educational groups rangedbetween 0.13 and 0.16. Di Maggio assumes that culturalcapital has a relatively low impact on the reproductionof the upper class, because in the 1960s the sons ofparents from this group belonged to nonconformistyouth subcultures that rejected a high-cultural life style.

De Graaf (1986) analyzed the influence of two scoresfor cultural capital (cultural consumption of parentsmeasured by the indicators: theater visits, museum vis-its, visits to historical buildings and reading climate, mea-sured by the indicators serious reading and library visits)on the educational achievements of the oldest and secondoldest sibling in the family. He used the socio-economicstatus of parents (education of father and mother andoccupational status of the father), family income and thenumber of siblings as latent control variables in struc-tural equation modelling and divided the sample intotwo cohorts (age of children: 25–40 and 41–65). The first

cohort consisted of 317 and the second of 221 families.The study showed that a family’s socio-economic statushad only a weak influence on reading climate (0.05 forthe younger and 0.06 for the older cohort), but readingclimate had a substantial effect on a family’s educationalachievement (0.57 and 0.31, respectively). However, thepattern was reversed in terms of cultural consumption,which was strongly dependent on socio-economic back-ground (0.89 and 0.61, respectively), but did not influ-ence a family’s educational achievement. These findingssupport the view, in contrast to Bourdieu’s assumptions,that the consumption of high culture does not affecteducational achievement, and is more likely only anindicator of high status culture in Weber’s sense (1972).In contrast, reading climate, referring to linguistic andcognitive skills, does influence educational achievementin a strong way. However, this influence is only slightlyless than half as strong in the younger cohort.

For the problem of measuring cultural capital men-tioned above, De Graaf et al. (2000) propose a differenti-ation of cultural consumption and reading behaviour.They argue that in a country with a modernized schoolsystem such as the Netherlands, in contrast to France,high culture is not as strongly interconnected with cur-riculum. However, they assume that sophisticated read-ing behaviour on the part of parents leads to thedevelopment of cognitive and linguistic skills that makeit easier for siblings to succeed in a modern and demo-cratic school system. In a second step, the authors testDi Maggio’s (1982) reproduction and mobility hypothesisusing a sample of 1653 respondents from the Dutchfamily survey of 1992/93. On this basis, they computedthree nested regression models, whereby the first modeldescribes the influence of cohorts, gender, incompletefamilies, parental education and father’s occupationalstatus on the child’s educational achievement. Theyfound that parental education has a much strongerinfluence on the child’s educational status than theoccupational position of the father (0.36 vs 0.14). In asecond step, a composite measure of cultural capitalcontaining five items for cultural consumption andreading behaviour was added to the model. As a result,the predictive power of parental education fell by 33 percent and that of occupational status by 57 per cent. In afinal step, they decomposed the common scale for culturalcapital into two subclasses for cultural consumption andreading behaviour. In this version of the model, onlyparental reading behaviour had a significant influenceon the child’s educational status (0.17 vs 0.04). To testthe reproduction and mobility hypothesis, in the last twoversions of the model reference was made to interaction

336 GEORG

effects between parental educational achievements andthe various measures of cultural capital. The commonscale for cultural capital contained a strong negativeeffect (−0.35), indicating that children from lower edu-cational groups use cultural capital as a means ofupward mobility. A decomposition of both measuresproduced an insignificant effect for cultural consump-tion, while reading behaviour had nearly the samepredictive power as the common score (−0.31). Theseresults can be summarized as follows:

Unlike Bourdieu’s findings for France in the 1960sand 1970s, the consumption of high culture is no longera strong factor in explaining school success in moderneducational systems such as the Dutch system. However,a crucial measure of cultural capital proved to be readingbehaviour as an indicator of cognitive and linguisticskills. Cultural capital is primarily an instrument toachieve upward mobility and is not used as a means ofsocial closure by high status groups.

Sullivan (2001) refers to the studies mentioned aboveand criticizes the state of research, insofar as up until thepresent the basic causal process has been modeled onlyincompletely. In a survey of 465 pupils at four Englishforms in the 11th class (by age 16), she asked, besides theusual socio-structural variables, about students’ differ-ent cultural activities in the areas of reading, TV con-sumption, musical taste, participation in high culturalevents, and finally tests of linguistic abilities and culturalknowledge. Additionally, students were asked abouttheir parents’ cultural capital, measured by the numberof books in the home, parental reading habits, theirmusic and media consumption, and finally their partici-pation in high cultural activities and topics discussed athome. In the statistical analysis, the influence of culturalcapital on children’s school success was modelled inthree steps: firstly a regression model was computed thatused parental education, their occupational status(according to Erikson et al., 1979), gender and theschool type attended as predictors for the cultural activi-ties of children. Found to be significant were member-ship in the upper service class and a university diploma.A further model was completed of parents’ culturalactivities. In this model, all previously significant effectsdisappeared, and only cultural capital had a significantinfluence (variance explained by this variable: 23.3 percent). These results provide evidence for the intergener-ational transmission of cultural capital.

In two further steps, the subsequent influence of theabove-named variables on performance on the linguisticand cultural knowledge test was modelled. As a result, itwas above all the consumption of serious TV programs

(explained variance: 4.2 per cent) and serious reading(2.1 per cent) that proved to be important predictors,while musical activities and participation in formal cul-ture did not have any substantial influence. Similarresults were found for the knowledge test, except thatthe order was reversed (reading: 3.5 per cent, TV con-sumption: 2 per cent). As the final link of the causalchain, the influence of the variables named above onschool success, measured by a composite score of allgrades, was analyzed. Besides the scores of both abilitytests (each around 11 per cent), it was again readingbehaviour (2.5 per cent) and TV consumption (1 percent) that displayed a significant effect.

In conclusion, this analysis was successful (even if themeasurement was imperfect, because parental behaviourwas measured by the respondents for their own chil-dren) in modelling the effects of cultural capital, startingwith the transmission and stimulation of differentialscores on ability tests and ending with effects on schoolperformance. Again, it was reading behaviour and notparticipation in high culture or musical activities thatinfluenced aptitudes and success at school. A remainingdesideratum is that the modelling of the causal effectswas done in successive models and not simultaneously,and this way of modelling can seriously bias the esti-mated coefficients.

Finally, Baumert and colleagues (2003) analyzed thetransmission of social inequality using a three-levelstructural model with the PISA database for East andWest Germany. As exogenous variables, family socio-economic status (measured by the highest ISEI), educa-tional attainment (indicated by the highest educationallevel attained), immigrant status (national origin) andlength of residence in Germany were used as manifest vari-ables. On the level of intervening effects, three latent vari-ables that conceptualized cultural practice in Bourdieu’ssense (investment in cultural goods such as books andartworks, group cultural activities in the family), commu-nicative practice in the sense of social capital (Coleman,1988) and consumption behaviour (acquisition of luxurygoods, etc.) were introduced into the model. Additionally,the number of siblings and the language spoken at homewere used as manifest variables on this process level.Finally, the score on the ability test for reading literacy wasused as the dependent variable in the model.

In the model for West Germany, 36 per cent of thevariance in reading literacy could be explained. Whilecultural practice proved a strong predictor of readingliteracy (0.40), consumption behaviour and social capital(communicative practice) did not have a substantialinfluence on test scores. In addition, the number of

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE 337

siblings (−0.13) and German as the language used in thehome (0.16) had only a weak influence on reading liter-acy. Depending on family background, cultural practicewas strongly influenced by the family’s socio-economic(0.31) and educational (0.38) status, while social capitalwas relatively independent of both factors (0.11 and 0.15,respectively). Finally, consumption behaviour showed amid-level of dependency (0.20 and 0.14, respectively). InEast Germany, the amount of explained variance in read-ing literacy was substantially lower (26 per cent), but thepredictions of this test score showed nearly the same pat-terns as in West Germany. However, cultural practice wasless dependent on the socio-economic (0.24) and educa-tional (0.34) status of the family, and the family’snational origin had lower indirect effects on the readingliteracy score. The authors conclude that a concept ofcultural capital that exclusively transmits the effects ofsocial class (socio-economic and educational status) inthe model clearly has a much higher construct validitythan Coleman’s concept of social capital.

What inferences can be made against the backgroundof the empirical studies discussed so far? As a generalconclusion, cultural capital is clearly a core concept inthe transmission of social inequality between the genera-tions in different countries, but there seems to be a ten-dency in modern school systems for it not to beparticipation in high-status cultural activities that is thecrucial aspect of cultural capital for the transmission ofsocial inequality, but rather the family’s reading behav-iour and culture. When the latent variable for culturalcapital in the study by Baumert and colleagues (2003) isdecomposed into a measure for visits to cultural institu-tions (museums, theaters, opera houses) and one forreading behaviour (number of books, possession ofbooks on classical literature and poetry, etc.), only read-ing behaviour has a significant effect on reading literacy(own computations, publication in progress).

It remains unclear whether cultural capital is used byhigher status groups as a means for the reproduction ofsocial status or by the lower social strata for upwardmobility. Di Maggio’s results (1982) support the firsthypothesis for girls only, whereas De Graaf et al. (2000)have found evidence to support the second.

Most of the above-mentioned studies have certainshortcomings due to sample design or the measurementof cultural capital. De Graaf (1986) criticizes Di Maggio(1982) for providing data only on the cultural participa-tion of pupils, but not on parental cultural capital, whichdetracts from the survey of the transmission process. Onthe other hand, the data used by De Graaf containsinformation only on parental activities. Sullivan (2001)

reconstructs parental cultural capital using informationgiven by children, a method that is problematic in termsof data validity.

Research Questions and Hypotheses To correct the shortcomings of the research on culturalcapital and social reproduction discussed thus far, itwould be desirable to compare different measures (i.e.reading behaviour and cultural consumption) that havebeen surveyed for both parents and children to modelthe specific transmission processes and finally to predictthe influence of these dimensions on the trajectory ofsocial status in the life course. However, the data at handdo not provide this complete information, and the sub-sequent analysis is restricted to segments of this model.Firstly, we are limited to composite measures of culturalcapital containing indicators for both reading behaviourand cultural consumption. Secondly, we can predict theinfluence of these measures only on educational attain-ment and present occupational status. Against this back-ground, the following research questions and hypothesescan be derived from Bourdieu’s theory and the researchliterature reviewed so far:

Classical path models of status attainment (Blau andDuncan, 1967) conceptualize the direct transmission ofparents’ educational attainment to children’s educa-tional trajectories. These models can be used to describethe fluidity and social mobility (or social closure) of dif-ferent societies. However, it remains unclear what causalprocesses cause this transmission of social status fromone generation to the next. As Bourdieu theorized, fam-ily cultural resources could be a core concept in explain-ing the inheritance of social status. This would meanthat, after controlling for the direct transmission effectbetween the educational attainments of parents andchildren, there should be a substantial indirect effectfunctioning via parents’ cultural resources and theirtransmission to children.

Hypothesis 1: besides a direct transmission effectbetween the educational attainments of parents and chil-dren, there is an indirect effect that refers to the transmis-sion of cultural resources from parents to children and asubsequent effect on children’s educational attainment.

Furthermore, Bourdieu claims that the influence ofincorporated cultural capital is not limited to the endresult of the educational process, but also influencesoccupational careers, because the direction of complexcultural codes leads to competitive advantages.

338 GEORG

Hypothesis 2: cultural resources influence not onlythe level of educational attainment, but also occupa-tional status.

According to Bourdieu, habitus is incorporated duringprimary socialization and becomes a dominant compo-nent of a person’s personality over the life course. In thisconnection, he speaks of the ‘hysteresis-effect’, i.e. if aperson’s actual resources change, the habitus of originwill guide behaviour and life style in a consistent way.With respect to cultural capital, this would mean thatonce accumulated in youth and childhood, a high levelof stability is to be expected over the life course.

Hypothesis 3: the amount of cultural capital availableduring the life course does not change substantially.

Data and Measures The following analyses are based on a follow-up study ofa student survey using a panel design, made by Fend andcolleagues between 1979 and 1983. In 1983, the studentshad a mean age of 16 and in 2002 of 35 years. The surveysubsumes one cohort of municipalities of the city ofFrankfurt am Main, Germany (Bockenheim, Westend,Nordwestadt) and the chiefly rural county of Odenwaldin the state of Hessen (where Frankfurt is also located).

In these areas, interviews were conducted with stu-dents in all types of schools (elementary school, second-ary modern school, grammar school and comprehensiveschool) who where in the 6th class in 1979. Altogether,2897 students participated at least at one measurementpoint of the panel, and 1790 took part in all four panelwaves. Due to absence, repetition of classes, and movingeach year, about 14 per cent of each class changed (i.e.this proportion dropped out and was completed eachyear). Besides the main sample, sub-samples were col-lected in order to analyze test- and cohort-effects. Fur-thermore, in 1980 and 1982 a panel sample of parentswas surveyed that was completed in 1979, 1980 and 1982using a teachers sample.

With an address-inquiry, 2021 of the original 2897respondents who had been questioned once could belocated. Because the addresses proved incorrect in 154cases, the final sample consisted of 1867 persons, ofwhom 1527 (81.8 per cent) participated in the follow-upsurvey. A significant selection bias in this sample com-pared to the original survey can be noted with respect tonationality (Germans participated to a higher degree),place of residence (residents of bigger cities are under-represented), social class (the higher the social status, theless willing they were to respond) and type of school

(higher panel-mortality of students from elementaryschools). The questionnaires were mailed out in spring/summer 2002 using the Total Design Method proposedby Dillmann (1978), i.e. besides offering an incentive(10E), a letter was sent as a reminder, and all non-responders received a follow-up call after a certainperiod of time. These methods increased the responselevels by 15.7% and 22.2%, respectively. The follow-upquestionnaire contained a great number of ‘subjective’and ‘objective’ indicators for the areas of schooling andprofession, family of origin, partnership and marriage,social network, politics and values, leisure time, life style,as well as mental and physical health.

In the structural equation model presented below, thefollowing measures were used: Parents of respondents in 1980:

Frequency of reading during the last three months(1 = never − 4 = more often than twice a month)

Attending courses for further training in the last threeyears (1 = never − 3 = more often than twice)

Number of books in the home

Highest level of educational attainment of father andmother (1 = low level − 3 = high level)

Respondents in 1983:

Frequency of practicing on musical instruments(1 = never − 4 = very often)

Frequency of conversations with peers on books, the-ater, movies and fine arts (1 = never − 4 = very often)

Frequency of reading books (1 = never − 4 = very often)

Frequency of listening to classical music (1 = never −4 = very often)

Respondents in 2002:

Frequency of serious reading (1 = never − 5 = very often)

Frequency of attending classical music concerts, theaterand art exhibitions (1 = never–5 = very often)

Frequency of writing texts (1 = never − 5 = very often)

Frequency of listening to classical music and jazz(1 = never − 5 = very often)

Highest educational attainment (1 = elementary school −5 = Abitur, i.e. the equivalent of obtaining a highschool diploma)

Occupational education (ranging from apprenticeshipto university)

Socio-economic status of occupation according to theInternational Socio-Economic Index (Ganzeboomet al., 1992)

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE 339

The Appendix shows the mean and standard deviationof these measures.

Analysis In order to test the three hypotheses described above, astructural equation model was developed that impliedthe following measurement model for the data: parentalcultural capital was indicated by the frequency of read-ing, as well as of attending courses for further training inthe last three months, and the number of books in the

home. Indicators of the child’s cultural capital were thefrequency of practicing on musical instruments, of con-versations with peers on theater, movies, books and thefine arts, of reading books and listening to classicalmusic. By age 35, cultural capital was measured by thefrequency of serious reading, attending theaters, classi-cal concerts and art exhibitions, writing texts and theconsumption of classical music or jazz.

Socio-structural latent variables were measured asfollows: the educational attainments of parents wereindicated by the educational status of father and mother,the respondent’s educational level, subsuming both

Year of Panel-Wave

Age 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 STUDENTS

12

13

14

15 Test Group

16 Main Group

Parallel Group

138 229 178 TEACHERS

988 590 PARENTS

A 62

A+B 129

A+B+C 2932

A+B+C+D287

2054

2003

1952

2047

1790*

264

246

161

Figure 1 The numbers show the complete sample size per year of the panel. *About: 128 school leavers (usually apprentices); 112 students who left school (usually vocational schools); 1550 students of secondary schools, high schools, comprehensive secondary schools Source: Fend 1998:54

340 GEORG

school and vocational education, and finally present sta-tus was measured as a manifest indicator by the ISEI ofthe respondent’s occupation.

Different indicators were used for the measurement ofparental cultural capital, for students at age 16 and adultsat age 35. This is because ‘cultural capital’ means some-thing completely different for an adolescent as opposedto a middle-aged adult, and accordingly a parallel mea-surement on the nominal level would suggest an identitythat cannot be assumed from a developmental point ofview.

On the structural level, firstly a direct path wasassumed between the educational status of parents andchildren, referring to the reproduction effect of educa-tional attainment. Furthermore, the educational statusof the parents was assumed to influence their culturalcapital. Students’ cultural capital was assumed to affecttheir educational attainment, cultural resources by age35 and the status of their present occupation. Finally, itwas assumed that the educational status of former pupilshad an impact on their occupational status and culturalcapital in 2002, which in turn influenced their presentISEI. With this model, it is possible to analyze the trans-mission of cultural capital between parents and children,the stability of cultural resources in the life course(between the ages of 16 and 35) and the longitudinaleffects of educational background and cultural capital atdifferent stages of the life course on educational attain-ment and occupational status. For the first hypothesis,the path from parents’ educational level to their culturalcapital, the transmission path from this capital to chil-dren and the influence of children’s cultural resourceson their educational attainments are crucial. Only if allthree paths are significant, can a reproduction effect viacultural capital be shown. The second hypothesis, thatpredicts the continuing influence of cultural capital overthe life course, can be tested by the influence of presentand past cultural capital on occupational status. Finally,hypothesis 3, the stability hypothesis for cultural capital,is conceptualized in terms of the path between children’spast and present cultural capital.

The model was created using a Maximum Likelihoodestimator, a covariance matrix and the CALIS procedurein SAS. A pair-wise deletion of missing data resulted in asample size of 548 respondents. The large reduction from1527 respondents to 548 cases for the actual analysis wasnecessary, because only 988 parents were interviewed in1980, and not all of their children participated in the fol-low-up in 2002. A selection bias resulted from the mea-sures used for the analysis. Significant differences (usinga t-test) from the original sample are due, e.g. to a

mother’s higher educational level, more books in thehome and a higher level of educational attainment,vocational education and ISEI. Taken together, therespondents included in the analysis display a biastowards higher social status and more cultural skills andpractice than the subjects of the original sample. Thisfinding is problematic for the use of advanced tech-niques of missing value treatment, because one assump-tion of the underlying EM algorithm is a randomstructure of missing values, lacking in the present case.One might argue that the generalizability of the results islimited by the selection bias; on the other hand, this is anunsolvable problem in all long-term panels (19 years inthe present case). Consequently, this bias should betaken into account, and the results should be interpretedcautiously.

While the model could not be accepted using chi-square statistics, the RMSEA of 0.04 displays a close fit ofthe model to the population (Browne and Cudeck1993). The measurement model indicates that the num-ber of books in the home is clearly the best single indica-tor of parents’ cultural capital. While by age 16 nearly allitems for cultural resources have the same importancefor the construct, producing texts is the worst indicatorin 2002. This finding could be explained by the fact thatall other indicators refer to the consumption of formalculture.

The transmission effect of cultural capital from par-ents to children (0.44) displays a strong influence in thelearning of cognitive schemes between the generations inprimary socialization and supports Bourdieu’s theory of‘habitus’ inheritance. However, even more interesting isthe finding that a high cultural orientation remains verystrong (0.61) in the period of nearly 20 years betweenearly adolescence and adulthood. The influence of cul-tural capital on the status attainment process is substan-tial only until vocational education is completed, andpresent occupational status is only significantly affectedby educational attainment, which can best be predictedby parental educational status (0.51) and independentlyof this by cultural capital up to age 16. However, adultcultural capital in 2002 is also affected by the educationalattainments of the respondents (0.21), a result thatunderlines the importance of the development of cul-tural resources over the life course, in addition to inher-itance from the social background. In this model, we donot find a longitudinal effect of primary or presentcultural capital on occupational status.

The first hypothesis, arguing for a subsequent influ-ence of the inheritance of cultural capital on the child’seducational attainment, is confirmed by these findings.

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE 341

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rent

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ld

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ital

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(2

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ic

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ents

Con

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atio

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ter

Re

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ing

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ea

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erts

, the

ater

Wri

ting

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ssic

alm

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Occ

upat

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l St

atus

of

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lt C

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2)

Vocational Education

School Education

.21

Chi

-Squ

are:

210.

90

DF:

105

RM

SEA

:.04

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:.95

GFI

:.96

Fig

ure

2St

ruct

ural

Equ

atio

n M

odel

with

Sta

tus

of P

aren

ts, C

ultu

ral C

apita

l of

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nts

(198

0) a

nd C

hild

(198

3), E

duca

tiona

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tus

and

Cul

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200

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Solu

tion,

all

coef

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sign

ifica

nt o

n th

e 5%

leve

l)

342 GEORG

Besides a direct transmission effect (0.51), there is an indi-rect reproduction effect via cultural capital (educationalattainment of parents – cultural capital: 0.77; transmis-sion to child: 0.44; cultural capital of child – educationalstatus: 0.20). The third hypothesis, which claims a highstability of cultural capital over the life course, wasimpressively supported (cultural capital 1983 – culturalcapital 2002: 0.61). However, we must reject the thirdhypothesis, because there is no effect of cultural capitalon present occupational status.

Discussion This paper began with recent findings (Deutsches PISA-Konsortium, 2001) that underscore the persistence ofsocial inequality despite the expansion of the educa-tional sector. As a theoretical framework for the expla-nation of this fact, Pierre Bourdieu’s generalized capitaltheory is still the dominant paradigm (Baumert et al.,2003). However, an overview of empirical findings inthis field showed that the evidence is much weaker thanthe theoretical assumptions developed by Bourdieu.Firstly, it seems that it is not participation in formalculture that is the crucial measure for the inheritanceand reproduction of status, but rather the readingclimate and habits of the family. Secondly, some studies(Di Maggio, 1982; De Graaf et al., 2000) show that cul-tural capital is used not only, and mainly, to achieve socialclosure and the reproduction of high status groups, butalso as a means of upward mobility by the lower classes.Thirdly, the effects of cultural capital on school successwere by no means as deterministic as predicted by Bour-dieu’s theory. However, it must be mentioned that theempirical findings of all studies are consistent insofar ascertain measures of cultural capital had an effect on per-formance at school independently of family educationalbackground. What has not been previously surveyed inan adequate way is the process of transmitting culturalcapital, its stability over the life course and the sequentialeffects on the status attainment process. With data froma 19 year follow-up study on the development of formerpupils, an attempt was made to meet this desideratum.As a limitation on the generalizability of the data, it hasto be stated, however, that the panel-mortality shows anunder-representation of children from foreign back-grounds, higher social strata and with respect to place ofresidence. Additionally, there were differences in themeasures used for cultural capital in 1983 and 2002.While reading books (with an emphasis on serious read-ing in 2002) and listening to classical music were part of

the construct in both panel waves, instead of conversa-tions on cultural topics (1983), attendance of culturalevents was used as a measure in 2002. These differentindicators refer to developmental differences in the mea-surement of cultural capital by the ages of 16 and 35.Discussing cultural topics with peers is an age-equivalentitem, while for young adults attendance of culturalevents is a far better indicator. The main differences inthe construct can be seen in practice on musical instru-ments (which is typical of a culture-oriented life style inthe family of origin), and the production of texts,which can be regarded as an adult equivalent of per-sonal cultural practice.

By means of structural equation modeling, it could beshown that there is a strong transmission effect betweenparents and children (0.44) in the data and that orienta-tion to formal culture is very stable (0.61) over the lifecourse between adolescence and adulthood. This strikingstability could be interpreted in accord with Bourdieu’sassumption about the hysteresis of habitus. Once estab-lished in childhood and youth as a learned scheme forthe production of cultural practice and the evaluation ofthe practices of other classes, habitus possess a stabilitythat may be contrasted with actual disposal over eco-nomic, cultural and social resources. However, the onlysubstantial effect of cultural capital on status attainmenthad occurred by the time occupational education wascompleted. Nor did cultural capital by age 16 affectpresent occupational status, and this effect was not dis-played by cultural capital in 2002. As a result, it seemsthat the effect of social inheritance is limited to trans-mission from late adolescence to early adulthood (up tothe end of occupational education), and the later processof social positioning is predominantly influenced byinstitutional linkages between the educational and occu-pational systems (via grades). This result conflicts withBourdieu’s assumption that the habitus of origin deter-mines the whole life course trajectory from primaryeducation to occupational career. In contrast, it seemsthat once secondary school qualification is acquired, thefurther process of status attainment develops in a muchmore meritocratic way than is assumed by Bourdieu’scapital theory.

Acknowledgements This paper is based on data of the research project ‘Path-ways from Late Childhood to Adulthood. Context andDevelopment in Adolescence as Predictors of ProductiveLife-Courses (Lebensverläufe Ins Frühe Erwachsenenalter:

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE 343

LIFE)’ by Fend, Georg, Berger and Lauterbach. Theproject was financed by Deutsche Forschungsgemein-schaft and Schweizer Nationalfond. I especially want tothank Maria Jimenez Hernandez, who computed aformer version of the structural equational model.

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Author’s address Universität Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, Fach D20

D-78457 Konstanz, Germany. Email: Werner.Georg@uni-konstanz.de

Manuscript submitted: September 2003

344 GEORG

Appendix Mean and standard deviation of measures used in the analysis

Variable Mean Standard deviation

Educational level of father 1.48 0.71 Educational level of mother 1.39 0.61 Frequency of reading books (parents) 2.56 1.22 Courses for further training (parents) 1.48 0.78 Number of books 2.54 0.92 Practicing on musical instruments (child) 1.65 0.73 Conversations about books etc. (child) 2.30 0.83 Reading books (child) 1.46 0.70 Listening to classical music (child) 2.52 1.13 Highest educational attainment (child) 2.74 1.09 Highest level of vocational education 2.11 1.04 Serious reading (2002) 2.11 1.04 Attending classical music concerts etc. (2002) 2.07 0.88 Writing texts (2002) 1.83 0.97 Listening to classical music (2002) 2.14 1.12 ISEI 47.62 15.05