56 Pierre Bourdieu 6 CULTURAL REPRODUCTION AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION Plerre Bourdieu ‘The specific role of the sociology of educa- tion is assumed once it has established itself as the science of the relations between cul- tural reproduction and social reproduction. ‘This occurs when it endeavors to determine the contribution made by the educational system to the reproduction of the structure of power relationships and symbolic rela- tionships between classes, by contributing to the reprodi e i ital these luction of of oS tive relations which impart their relational ‘gxistand survive, has nothing in common, with the analytical recording of relations, ‘Gdsting within a given lation, be it PGuction of the Se Pepareer te sca demic success of children and the social position of their family or of the relations ‘between the positions filled by children and their parents. The substantialist mode of thought which stops short at directly acces- sible elements, that is to say individuals, claims a certain fidelity to reality by dis- regarding the structure of relations whence these elements derive all their sociologically relevant determinations, and thus finds it self having to analyze intra- or inter-genera- tional mobility processes to the detriment of the study of mechanisms which tend to ol ence of the Pierre Bourdieu, excerpt from “Cultural Repro- duction and Social Reproduction” from Richard Brown (ed.), Knowledge, Education, and Cultural Oange. ‘the jon of Tavis- tock Publications and the British Sociological As- sociation. ensure the reproduction of the structure of relations between classes; it is unaware that the controlled mobility of a limited cate- gory of individuals, carefully selected and modified by and for individual ascent, is not incompatible with the permanence of struc- ‘ures, and that it is even capable of contrib- ‘uting to social stability in the only way con- ceivable in societies based upon democratic ideals and thereby may help to perpetuate the structure of class relations. ‘Any break with substantialist atomism, even if it does not mean going as far as certain structuralists and seeing agents as the simple “supports” of structures invested with the mysterious power of determining other structures, implies taking as our theme the process of education. This means thatour object becomes the production of the habi- tus, that system of dispositions which acts as ‘a mediation between structures and prac- tice; more specifically, it becomes necessary to study the laws that determine the ten- dency of structures to reproduce themselves by producing agents endowed with the sys- tem of predispositions which is capable of engendering practices adapted to the struc- ‘tures and thereby contributing to the repro- duction of the structures. If itis conceived within a theoretical framework such as this, the sociology of educational institutions and, in particular, of institutions of higher edu- cation, is capable of making a decisive con- tribution to the science of the structural dy- namics of class relations, which is an often neglected aspect of the sociology of power. Indeed, among all the solutions put forward throughout history to the problem of the transmission of power and privileges, thereCultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction 87 surely does not exist one that is better con- cealed, and therefore better adapted to so- cieties which tend to refuse the most pa- tent forms of the hereditary transmission of power and privileges, than that solution which the educational system provides by contributing to the reproduction of the struc- ture of class relations and by concealing, by an apparently neutral attitude, the fact that it fills this Function. ‘The Role of the Educational System in the Reproduction of the Structure ofthe Distribution of Cultural Capital By traditionally defining the educational sys- tem as the group of institutional or routine mechanisms by means of which is operated what Durkheim calls “the conservation of a culture inherited from the past,” ie,, the transmission from generation to generation of accumulated information, classical theo- ries tend to dissociate the function of cul- tural reproduction proper to all educational systems from their function of social re- production. Transposing, as they do, the representation of culture and of cultural transmission, commonly accepted by the cethnologists, to the case of societies divided into classes, these theories are based upon the implicit assumption that the different pedagogic actions which are carried out within the framework of the social struc- ture, that is to say, those which are carried ‘out by families from the different social classes as well as that which is practiced by the school, work together in a harmonious way to transmit a cultural heritage which is considered as being the undivided property of the whole society. In fact the statistics of theater, concert, and, above all, museum attendance (since, in the last case, the effect of economic obstacles is more or less nil) are sufficient reminder that the inheritance of cultural wealth which has been accumulated and bequeathed by previous generations only really belongs (although itis theoretically offered to every- one) to those endowed with the means of ap- propriating it for themselves. In view of the fact that the apprehension and possession of cultural goods as symbolic goods (along, with the symbolic satisfactions which ac- company an appropriation of this kind) are possible only for those who hold the code ‘making it possible to decipher them or, in other words, that the appropriation of sym- bolic goods presupposes the possession of the instruments of appropriation, it is sulfi- cient to give free play to the laws of cultural transmission for cultural capital to be added tocultural capital and for the structureof the distribution of cultural capital between so- ial classes to be thereby reproduced. By this is meant the structure of the distribution of instruments for the appropriation of sym- bolic wealth socially designated as worthy of being sought and possessed. ‘The different classes or sections of a class are organized around three major positions: the lower position, occupied by the agricul- tural professions, workers, and small trades- people, which are, in fact, categories ex- cluded from participation in “high” culture; the intermediate position, occupied on the one hand by the heads and employees of in- dustry and business and, on the other hand, by the intermediate office staff (who are just about as removed from the two other cate- gories as these categories are from the lower categories); and, lastly, the higher position, which is occupied by higher office staff and professionals, ‘The educational system reproduces all the” ore pee y the race of the: etee ui classes (and sections oa cas] in tha theca which it transmits is 0 the dominant culture58 Pierre Bourdiew and that the mode of inculcation to which it Tecourse is less remove the mode Tnculcation practiced family. Inas- ‘as it operates in ugh a rela- tionship of communication, pedagogic ac- tion directed at inculcating the dominant culture can in fact escape (even if it is only in part) the general laws of cultural trans- mission, according to which the appropri- ation of the proposed culture (and, conse- quently, the success of the apprenticeship which is crowned by academic qualifica- tions) depends upon the previous posses- sion of the instruments of appropriation, to the extent and only to the extent that it ex: plicitly and deliberately hands over, in the pedagogic communication itself, those in- indispensable to the success of the communication and which, in a society divided into classes, are very un- equally distributed among children from the different social classes. An educational system which puts into practi pedagogic action, requiring ity with the dominant culture, and which proceeds by imperceptible familiarization, offers information and training which can be received and acquired only by subjects endowed with the system of predispositions that is the condition for the success of the transmission and of the inculcation of the culture. By doing away with giving explicitly to everyone what it implicitly demands of ‘everyone, the educational system demands of everyone alike that they have what it does not give. This consists mainly of linguistic and cultural competence and that relation- ship of familiarity with culture which can only be produced by family upbringing when it transmits the dominant culture. sho institution_officially_en- trusted with the ion of the instru- ‘of appropriation of the dominant cul- ture which neglects methodically to transmit ¢ instruments in¢ je to the success of its undertaking is bound to ye the Tmonopoly of those social classes capable of appropriation of the dominant culture an Tair monopol} t culture? The OSE that edicaional action gets to that limit, the more the value that the educational system attributes to the products of the edu- cational work carried out by families of the different social classes is directly a function of the value as cultural capital whichis attrib- uted, ona market dominated by the products, of the educational work of the families of the dominant classes, to the linguistic and cul- tural competence which the different classes or sections of a class are in a position to transmit, mainly in terms of the culture that they possess and of the time that they are able to devote to its explicit or implicit trans- ‘mission. That is to say that the transmission of this competence is in direct relation to the distance between the linguistic and cul- tural competence implicitly demanded by the educational transmission of educational culture (which is itself quite unevenly re- moved from the dominant culture) and the linguistic and cultural competence incul- cated by primary education in the different social classes. ‘The laws of the educational market may be read in the statistics which establish that, from the moment of entering into secondary education right up to the grandes écoes, the hierarchy of the educational establishments and even, within these establishments, the hierarchy of the sections and of the fields of study arranged according to their prestige and to the educational value they impart to their public, correspond exactly to the hier- archy of the institutions ... according to the social structure of their public, on account of the fact that those classes or sections of aCultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction 59 class which are richest in cultural capital be- come more and more over-represented as there is an increase in the rarity and hence in the educational value and social yield of aca- demic qualifications. If such is the case, the reason is that, by virtue of the small real au- tonomy of an educational system which is incapable of affirming the specificity of its principles of evaluation and of its own mode of production of cultured dispositions, the relationship between the pedagogic actions carried out by the dominated classes and by the dominant classes may be understood by analogy with the relationship which is set up, in the economic field, between modes of production of different epochs when for ex- ample, in a dualist economy, the products of a traditional local craft industry are sub- mitted to the laws of a market dominated by the chain-produced products of a highly developed industry: the symbolic products of the educational work of the different so- cial classes, ie, apart from knowledge and know-how, styles of being, of speaking, or of doing, have less value on the educational market and, more widely, on the symbolic market (in matrimonial exchanges, for in- stance) and on the economic market (at east to the extent that its sanctions depend upon academic ratification) in that the mode of symbolic production of which they are the product is more removed from the domi- nant mode of production or, in other words, from the educational norms of those social lasses capable of imposing the domination of criteria of evaluation which are the most favorable to their products. It is in terms of this logic that must be understood the prominent value accorded by the French educational system to such subtle modalities in the relationship to culture and language as affluence, elegance, naturalness, oF dis- tinction, all of which are ways of making use of the symbolic products whose role of rep- resenting excellence in the field of culture to the detriment of the dispositions produced by the school and paradoxically devalued, by the school itself, as being “academic”) is due to the fact that they belong only to those who have acquired culture or, at least, the dispositions necessary for the acquisition of academic culture, by means of familiariza- tion, ie., imperceptible apprenticeships from the family upbringing, which is the mode of acquisition of the instruments of appropri- ation of the dominant culture of which the dominant classes hold the monopoly. The sanctions of the academic market owe their specific effectiveness to the fact that they are brought to bear with every appearance of legitimacy: it is, in fact, as though the agents proportioned the invest- ments that are placed in production for the academic market—investments of time and enthusiasm for education on the part of the pupils, investments of time, effort, and money on the part of families—to the profits which they may hope to obtain, over a more or less long term, on this market, as though the price that they attribute to the sanctions of the academic market were in direct rela- tion to the price attributed to them by the sanctions of this market and to the extent to which their economic and symbolic value depends on the value which they are recog- nized to possess by the academic market. It follows from this that the negative predis- positions toward the school which result in theself-elimination of most children from the most culturally unfavored classes and sec- tions of a class—such as self-depreciation, devaluation of the school andits sanctions, oF a resigned attitude to failure and exclusion— must be understood as an anticipation, based ‘upon the unconscious estimation of the ob- jective probabilities of success possessed by the whole category, of the sanctions ob- jectively reserved by the school for those classes or sections of a class deprived of cul- tural capital. Owing to the fact that it is the product of the internalization of value that the academic market (anticipating by its for- ‘mally neutral sanctions the sanctions of the symbolic or economic market) confers upon60 Pierre Bourdieu the products of the family upbringing of the different social classes, and of the value which, by their objective sanctions, the eco- nomic and symbolic markets confer upon the products of educational action accord- ing to the social class from which they origi- nate, the system of dispositions toward the school, understood as a propensity to con- sent to the investments in time, effort, and ‘money necessary to conserve or increase cul- tural capital, tends to redouble the symbolic and economic effects of the uneven distri- bution of cultural capital, all the while con- cealing it and, at the same time, legitimating it. The functionalist sociologists who an- ounce the brave new world when, at the conclusion of a longitudinal study of aca- demic and social careers, they discover that, as though by a pre-established harmony, in- dividuals have hoped for nothing that they have not obtained and obtained nothing that they have not hoped for, are simply the least forgivable victims of the ideological effect which is produced by the school when it cuts off from their social conditions of produc- tion all predispositions regarding the school such as “expectations,” “aspirations,” “in- clinations,” or “desire,” and thus tends to cover up the fact that objective conditions— and in the individual case, the laws of the academic market—determine aspirations by determining the extent to which they can be satisfied. ‘This is the only one of the mechanisms by which the academic market succeeds in imposing upon those very persons who are its victims recognition of the existence ofits sanctions by concealing from them the objec- tive truth of the mechanisms and social mo- tives that determine them. To the extent to which it is enough for it to be allowed to run its own course, that is to say to give free play to the laws of cultural transmission, in order to ensure the reproduction of the structure of distribution of cultural capital, the edu- cational system which merely records im- mediate or deferred self-elimination (in the form of the self-relegation of children from the underprivileged classes to the lower edu- cational streams) or encourages elimination simply by the effectiveness of a non-existent pedagogical practice (able to conceal behind patently obvious procedures of selection the action of mechanisms tending to ensure in an almost automatic way—that is to say, in ‘a way which conforms to the laws govern- ing all forms of cultural transmission—the exclusion of certain categories of recipients of the pedagogic message), this educational system masks more thoroughly than any other legitimation mechanism (imagine for example what would be the social effects of an arbitrary limitation of the public carried out in the name of ethnic or social criteria) the arbitrary nature of the actual demarca- tion of its public, thereby imposing more subtly the legitimacy of its products and of its hierarchies. Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction By making social hierarchies and the re- production of these hierarchies appear to be based upon the hierarcy of “gifts,” mer- its, or skills established and ratified by its sanctions, or, in a word, by converting so- ial hierarchies into academichierarchies, the educational system fulfills a function of legi- timation which is more and more necessary to the perpetuation of the “social order” as the evolution of the power relationship be- tween classes tends more completely to ex- clude the imposition of a hierarchy based upon the crude and ruthless affirmation of the power relationship. But does the con- tinual increase, in most highly industrialized societies, in the proportion of the members of the ruling class who have passed through the university system and the best univer-Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction 61 sities lead one to conclude that the trans- mission of cultural capital is tending to be substituted purely and simply for the trans- mission of economic capital and ownership of the means of production in the system of mechanisms of reproduction of the structure of class relationships? ‘Apart from the fact that the increase in the proportion of holders of the most pres- tigious academic qualifications among the members of the ruling classes may mean only that the need to call upon academic approval in order to legitimate the tr mission of power and of privileges is being more and more felt, the effect is as though the cultural and educational mechanisms of transmission had merely strengthened or taken over from the traditional mechanisms such as the hereditary transmissions of eco- nomic capital, of a name, or of capital in terms of social relations; it is, in fact, as if the investments placed in the academic career of children had been integrated into the system of strategies of reproduction, which strategies are more ot less compatible and more or less. profitable depending on the type of capital to be transmitted, and by which each gen- eration endeavors to transmit to the follow- ing generation the advantages it holds. Con- sidering that, on the one hand, the ruling classes have at their disposal a much larger cultural capital than the other classes, even. those who constitute what are, rela- tively, the least well-off sections of the rul- ing classes and who, as has been seen, still practice cultural activities to atleast as great an extent as the most favored sections of the middie class, and considering that, on the other hand, they also have at their dis- posal the means of ensuring for this capital the best academic placing for its investment (that is to say the best establishments and the best departments), their academic in- vestments cannot fail to be extremely profit- able, and the segregation that is established right at the beginning of secondary educa- tion among students from different estab- lishments and different departments cannot help but be reinforced the further one gets into the academic course by reason of the continual increase in the differences result- ing from the fact that the most culturally privileged find their way into institutions c able of reinforcing their advantage. Inst tutions of higher education which ensure or legitimate access to the ruling classes, and, in particular, the grandes écoles (among which ‘must be counted the internat de médecine) are therefore to all intents and purposes the mo- nopoly of the ruling classes. The objective mechanisms which enable the ruling classes to keep the monopoly of the most presti- gious educational establishments, while con- tinually appearing at least to put the chance of possessing that monopoly into the hands of every generation, are concealed beneath the cloak of a perfectly democratic method of selection which takes into account only merit and talent, and these mechanisms are of a kind which converts to the virtues of the system the members of the dominated classes whom they eliminate in thesame way as they convert those whom they elect, and which ensures that those who are “miracu- lously elected” may experience as “miracu- lous” an exceptional destiny which is the best testimony of academic democracy. ‘Owing to the fact, first, that the aca- demic market tends to sanction and to re- produce the distribution of cultural capital by proportioning academic success to the amount of cultural capital bequeathed by the family (as is shown, for example, by the fact that, among the pupils of the grandes écoles, a very pronounced correlation may be observed between academiic success and the family’s cultural capital measured by the academic level of the forbears over two gen- erations on both sides of the family), and, second, because the most privileged sections of the dominant classes from the point of view of economic capital and power are not62 Pierre Bourdieu TABLE6. The Distribution of Cultural Capital among Different Sections of the Dominant Classes 1 2 3 4 35 6 7 Public Adminis. Profs Heads of Heads of ‘Teachers tration sionals Engineers Managers Industry Commerce Readers of Le Monde (penetration index per 1000) Cy Fj MS 1st 2 49 Readers of Le Figaro Litteraire (ditto) 168 wt 6 10 6 a Readers of non-professional books 5 is and sore er weck a 8 8 6 6 ww Ww ‘Theater-goers (atleast once every 2or3 months) 38 2» a 2B 4 16 20 Listeners to classical music 3 9 86 89 89 B 7 Visitors to museums and exhibitions 75 6 8 58 0 7 52 Visitors to art galleries 58 Et 7 6 1p ty 4 Possessors of FM radio 59 H 7 56 3B 8 8 Non-possessors of television 6 30 8 33 ee a necessarily the most well-off in terms of cul- tural capital, it may be expected that the hi- ‘erarchy of values attributed by the academic market to the products of the educational work of the families of the different sections will not correspond very closely to the hier- archy of these sections with regard to eco- nomic capital and power. Should it be con- ‘cluded from this that the relative autonomy of the mechanisms of reproduction of the structure of cultural capital in relation to the mechanisms ensuring the reproduction of economic capital is of a kind to cause a profound transformation, if not in the struc- ture of class relationships (despite the fact that the most culturally privileged sections of the middle class such as the sons of pri- ‘mary school and secondary school teachers are able triumphantly to hold their own on the academic market against the least cultur- ally privileged sections of the upper class), at least in the structure of relationships be- tween the sections of the dominant classes? ‘The structure of the distribution of cul- tural capital among the different sections of the dominant classes may be constructed on the basis of the collection of convergent in- dices brought together in the following con- spectus (see Table 6.1)? With the exception of afew inversions in which is expressed the action of secondary variables such as place of residence, along with the objective possibilities of cultural practice which are closely linked to it, and income, along with the possibilities which it offers, it can be seen that the different sec- tions are organized according to a single hi- with the differentiation of the cul- tural capital possessed in terms of the kind of training received being shown above all in the fact that engineers give proof of a gzeater interest in music (and in other leisure activities demanding the application of logi- cal skills, such as bridge and chess) than in literary activities (reading of Le Figaro Littér- aire or theater-going). If the proportion of individuals who do not possess television {and who are distinguished from the posses- sors of that instrument by the fact that they {go in more often for activities commonly held to be the expression of an authentically “cultured” or refined disposition) varies ac-‘Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction 63 Detectivenovels 25(6) 29) 7) 8G) ~—)SCa «EH Adventurestories 167) 208) 186) 4) = R19) 1914) Historicalaccounts 44(4) 472) 491) 47) M4) 366), 2707) Art books 20 0G) 6A) 196) BH) UG Novels 4Q) 80) 96) 2G) BG) 45) 2) Philosophy 2) BG 2 BA Be WA 126) Politalessays —15(1) 12) ~~) 76) 0G) BSA Economics mH 8h) 856 876) 88H Sciences 15) 144) 18 (2) 2@) 9% 106) 16) University Grande Ecole Secondary ‘Technical ‘Primary Detective novels 2B 7 7 22 Py ‘Adventure stories v u 2 7 y Historical accounts, g ry 2 a1 3 Art books: 3 m4 2 8 10 i 1 Politi eseays 16 « 6 6 3 Economics 2 2 5 3 4 Sciences 8 7 u 10 6 cording to the same law, it is because a re- fusal to indulge in this activity, which is sus- pected of being “vulgar” by reasons of its wide availability (divulgation), is one of the least expensive ways of expressing cultural pretensions (see Table 6.2) ‘These indicators probably tend to min- imize to a large extent the divergences be- tween the different sections of the domi- nant classes. Indeed, most cultural consumer goods also imply an economic cost, theater- going, for instance, depending not only on the level of education (in a population of ex- ‘ecutive personnel it ranges from 41 percent to 59 and 68 percent between the primary, secondary, and higher levels) but also on in- come (i., 46 percent for incomes less than. 20,000 francs per year against 72 percent for incomes more than 75,000 francs); further- more, equipment such as FM radio or hi-fi sets may be used in very different ways (e to listen to modern music or dance music), and the value accorded to these different utilizations may be just as disparate, by ref- erence to the dominant hierarchy of possible uses, as the different kinds of reading or the- ater; thus, as is shown in Table 6.2, the posi- tion of the different sections, arranged in a hierarchy in terms of the interest they place in the different kinds of reading, tends to draw nearer to their position in the hierarchy set up in terms of wealth in cultural capital the more that it is a question of reading- ‘matter which depends more upon level of ‘education and which is placed higher in the hierarchy of degrees of cultural legitimacy, With the exception of the liberal profes- sions, who occupy, in this field too, a high position, the structure of the distribution of economic capital is symmetric and opposite64 Pierre Bourdiew ‘TABLE63 Distribution of Economic Capital Heads of Hends of Pr Industry Commerce sional wn thee own eadence Uppers romobie Holidays in hotel Boat Average income in thousands of francs (Rate of non- decaaton) 7 3 2 8B 33 7” 4 6 4 36 ¢ 8) (24) roe: iit Managers Engineers Servants Teachers en 40 “ 38 BL 8 2 a 2» 2 2B a v 7 15 4 2 10 8 8 a 7 36 32 3 a (13) ® ® © Seclaration) 2) 8) OEE to the structure of the distribution of cul- tural capital—that is to say, in order, heads of industry and of commerce, professionals, managers, engineers, and, lastly, civil ser- vants and teachers (see Table 63). ‘Those sections which are richest in cul- tural capital are more inclined to invest in their children’s education at the same time as in cultural practices liable to maintain and increase their specific rarity; those sec- tions which are richest in economic capital set aside cultural and educational invest- ments to the benefit of economic invest- ments: it is to be noted, however, that heads of industry and commerce tend to do this much more than do the new “bourgeoisie” of the managers who reveal the same con- cem for rational investment both in the eco- nomic sphere and in the educational sphere.* Relatively well provided for with both forms of capital, but not sufficiently integrated into ‘economic life to put their capital to work ‘within it, the professionals (and especially lawyers and doctors) investin their children’s ‘education butalsoand aboveall inconsumer goods capable of symbolizing the possession of the material and cultural means of con- forming to the rules governing the bourgeois style of life and thereby guaranteeing a so- ial capital or capital of social relationships which will provide, ifnecessary, useful’’sup- s"; a capital of honorability and respect- ability which is often indispensable if one de- sires to attract clients in socially important positions, and which may serve as currency, for instance, in a political career. In fact those sections which are richest {n cultural capital have a larger proportion in an educational institution to the extent that the institution is highly placed in the specifically academic hierarchy of educa- tional institutions (measured, for instance, by the index of previous academic success); and this proportion attains its maximum in the institution responsible for ensuring the reproduction of the academic body (Ecole ‘Normale Supérieure) (Table 6.4) [T]he educational system tends to repro- duce (in the double sense of the word) the structure of relations between the structure of the distribution of cultural capital and the structure of the distribution of economic capital among the sections both in and by the relations of opposition and complemen- tarity which define the system of institutions of higher education. Infact, to the extent that it is the product of the application of two opposed principles of hierarchical ordering,Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction 65 TABLE 64 Cultural Capital and Educational Investment Faculty Prep, Clas for Poly = Ulm = Ulm Law Medicine Science Arts Polytech. ENA tech. Arts Se. Proportion of eachers children 320 45 45052 S490 99 9h Index of previous academic success oa 030512202986 ENA: Ecole Nationale d’ Administration Ulm Arts: Ecole Normale Supérieure d’Ulm (Arts) Uim Se. Beole Normale Supérieure d'Ulm (Scence) the structure of the system of institutions of higher education may be interpreted in a twofold way: the dominant hierarchy within the educational institution, ie., the hierarchy ‘which orders the institutions in terms of spe- cifically academic criteria and, correlatively, in terms of the proportion of those sections richest in cultural capital figuring in their public, is opposed diametrically to the domi- ‘nant hierarchy outside the educational institu- fion, i.e, the hierarchy which orders the in- stitutions in terms of the proportion in their public of those sections richest in economic ‘capital (and in power) and according to the position in the hierarcy of the economic capi- tal and power of the professions to which they lead. ...7 Analysis of the specifically academic mechanisms according to which apportion- ‘ment is effected between the different insti- tutions makes it possible to understand one of the most subtle forms of the trick (ruse) ‘of social reason according to which the aca- demic system works objectively toward the reproduction of the structure of relations be- ‘toeen the sections of the dominant classes when it appears to make full use of its own prin- ciples of hierarchical ordering.* Knowing, first, that academic success is directly de- Pendent on cultural capital and on the in- clination to invest in the academic market (which is itself, as is known, dependent on the objective chances of academic success) and, consequently, that the different sections are recognized and approved by the school system the richer they are in cultural capital and are also, therefore, all the more disposed to invest in work and academic prowess” and knowing, second, that the support ac- corded by a category to academic sanctions and hierarchies depends not only on the rank the school system grants to it in its hi- erarchies but also on the extent to which its interests are linked to the school system, or, in other words, on the extent to which its ‘commercial value and its social position de- ppend (in the past as in the future) on aca- demic approval, itis possible to understand why the educational system never succeeds quite so completely in imposing recognition of its value and of the value of its classifica tions as when its sanctions are brought to bear upon classes or sections ofa class which are unable to set against it any rival principle of hierarchical ordering. While those sec- tions which are richest in economic capital authorize and encourage a life-style whose seductions are sufficient to rival the ascetic demands of the academic system and while they ensure or promise guarantees beside66 Pierre Bourdieu which the college's guarantees can only ap- pear both costly and of little value (“aca- demic qualifications don't give you every- thing”), those sections which are richest in cultural capital have nothing to set against the attraction exercised by the signs of aca- demic approval which make their academic prowess worthwhile to them. In short, the effectiveness of the mechanisms by means ‘of which the educational system ensures its own reproduction encloses within itself its ‘own limitation: although the educational system may make use of its relative au- tonomy to propose and impose its own hi- erarchies and the university career which serves as its topmost point, it obtains com- plete adherence only when it preaches to the converted or to lay brethren, to teachers’ sons or children from the working or mid- dle classes who owe everything to it and expect everything of it. Far from diverting for its own profit children from the domi- nant sections of the dominant classes (as one may be led to believe by a few striking ex- amples which authorize the most conserva- tive sections of the bourgeoisie to denounce the corruption of youth and teachers or the intellectuals to believe in the omnipotence of their ideas), it puts off children from the other sections and classes from claiming the value of their academic investments and from drawing the economic and symbolic profit which the sons of the dominant sec- tion of the ruling classes know how to ob- tain, if necessary, better situated as they are to understand the relative value of academic verdicts, But would the school system succeed so completely in diverting for its own profit those categories which it recognizes as pos- sessing the greatest value (as is shown, for instance, by the difference in academic qual- ity between students from the ENS and those from the ENA) ifthe diplomas that it awards were convertible at par on the market of money and power? The limits of the auton- ‘omy allowed to the school system in the pro- duction of its hierarchies coincide exactly with the limits objectively assigned to its power of guaranteeing outside the academic ‘market the economic and symbolic value of the diplomas it awards. The same academic qualifications receive very variable values and functions according to the economicand ‘social capital (particularly the capital of rela- tionships inherited from the family) which those who hold these qualifications have at their disposal and according to the markets in which they use them: itis known, for in- stance, that the professional success of the former students of the Ecole des hautes ‘études commerciales (recruited, for the most part, among the Parisian business section) varies far more in relation to the way in which they obtained their first professional post (je, through family relations or by ther ways) than in relation to their position in the college-leaving examination; itis also known that civil servants whose fathers ‘were white-collar workers received in 1962 an average yearly salary of 18,027 francs as against 29 A70 francs for civil servants whose fathers were industrialists or wealthy trades- people (Praderie 1966:346~47). And if, as has been shown by the survey carried out by the Boulloche commission over 600 firms, only 2.4 percent of the 17,000 administrative ‘personnel employed by these firms have de- grees or are doctors of science as against 37 percent who have diplomas from an engi- neering grande école, it is because those who possess the most prestigious qualifications also have at their disposal an inherited capi- tal of relationships and skills which enable them to obtain such qualifications; this capi- tal is made up of such things as the practice of the games and sports of high society or the manners and tastes resulting from good breeding, which, in certain careers (not to ‘mention matrimonial exchanges which are opportunities for increasing the social capi- tal or honorability and relationships), con-Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction 67 stitute the condition, if not the principal fac- tor, of success." The habitus inculcated by upper-class families gives rise to practices which, even if they are without selfish mo- tives, such as cultural activities, are ex- tremely profitable to the extent that they make possible the acquisition of the maxi- mum yield of academic qualifications when- ever recruitment or advancement is based upon co-optation or on such diffuse and to- tal criteria as “the right presentation,” “gen- eral culture,” etc." ‘What this amounts to is that, as ina pre- capitalist economy in which a guarantee is worth as much as the guarantor, the value of the diploma, outside the specifically aca- demic market, depends on the economicand social values of the person who possesses it, inasmuch as the yield of academic capital (which is a converted form of cultural capi- tal) depends upon the economic and social ‘capital which can be put to its valorization: for the industrialists son who comes out of HEC, the diploma is only an additional qualification to his legitimately succeeding his father or to his occupying the directors post guaranteed for him by his network of family relations, whereas the white-collar worker's son, whose only way of obtaining the same diploma was by means of aca- demic success, cannot be sure of obtaining a post of commercial attaché in the same firm. Ina word, if, as is shown by the analysis of the social and academic characteristics of the individuals mentioned in Who's Who, the di- ploma is all the more indispensable for those from families less favored in economic and social capital, the fact remains that the edu- cational system is less and less in a position to guarantee the value of the qualifications that it awards the further one goes away from the domain that it controls completely, namely, that of its own reproduction; and the reason for this is that the possession of a diploma, as prestigious as it may be, is in any case less and less capable of guarantee- ing access to the highest positions and is never sufficient to guarantee in itself access to economic power. Inversely, as is shown by the diagram of correlation, access to the dominant classes and, a fortiori, to the domi- nant sections of the dominant classes, is rela- tively independent of the chances of gaining access to higher education for those indi- viduals from sections closest to economic and politico-administrative power, ie., top civil servants and heads of industry and commerce. . . . It would appear, therefore, that the further one goes away from the ju- risdiction of the school system the more the diploma loses its particular effectiveness as a guarantee of a specific qualification open- ing into a specific career according to formal- ized and homogeneous rules, and becomes a simple condition of authorization and aright of access which can be given full value only by the holders of a large capital of social rela- tionships (particularly in the liberal profes- sions) and is, at its extreme limit, when all it does is legitimate heritage, but a kind of op- tional guarantee. ‘Thus the relative autonomy enjoyed by the academic market on account of the fact that the structure of distribution of cultural capital is not exactly the same as the struc- ture of economic capital and of power gives the appearance of a justification for mei cratic ideology, according to which aca- demic justice provides a kind of resort or re- venge for those who have no other resources than their “intelligence” or their “merit.” only if one chooses toignore, first, that “intel- ligence” or academic goodwill represents but ‘one particular form of capital which comes to be added, in most cases, to the possession of economic capital and the correlative capi- tal of power and social relationships, and, second, that the holders of economic power have more chances than those who are de- prived of it also to possess cultural capital and, in any case, to be able to do without it since academic qualifications are a weak cur-68 Pierre Bourdiew rency and possess all their value only within the limits of the academic market. NOTES 1. The extremely close relationship that may be observed between museum attendance and {evel of education, on the one hand, and early attendance at museums, on the other hand, follows the same logic. 2. Sofres, Le Marché des Cadres Supérieure Fran- Gais (Pais, 1964). 3. A number of indicators suggest that the different sections of the dominant classes fan also be distinguished according to the mount of free time at their disposal. 4, The figures in parentheses represent the po- sitions ofeach Section. 5. Managers have a much more “moderistic” Style of life than do the traditional “bourgeoi- sie’—the heads of industry and commerce: they attain positions of power age they merece posse very aul iffeations; they more offen belong to larger land more modern businesses; they are the largest group to read the financial newspaper Les Echos (penetration index of 1264s opposed {091 for heads of industry) and weeklies deal- {ng with economics and finance (penetration indlox of 224 as against 190 for heads ofindus- try); they seem less inclined to invest their pital ip real estate; they indulge more often sn? modern’ leisure activities such as skiing, ete. 6. The analyses proposed below are based upon a systematic group of surveys, carried out ‘ver the last few years by the Centre de So- Gologie Européerne, of the faculties of arts, sciences, law, and medicine, and of all the lt- trary and scientific grandes écoles and of the tory classes for these colleges. 7. Fhe discordance between the two hierarchies and the predominance, within the institution, Of the specifically academic hierarchy is at the basis of the meritocratic illusion whose ‘most typical form is the ideology of the “lib- trating effects of the school” along with the indignation aroused among teaching staff, who are the first victims of this kind of aca demic ethnocentrism, at the discordance be- tween the social hierarchies and the academic hierarchies. 8. If the role of the system of institutions of higher education in the reproduction of the relations between the sections of the domi- nant classes often goes unnoticed, it is be- cause surveys of mobility accord more at- tention to mobility between classes than to mobility within the different classes and, in particular, within the dominant classes. 9, For an analysis ofthe dialectic of approval and recognition a the final stage of which the ‘school reocgnizes its members, or, in other words, those who recognize the school, see P. Bourdieu & M. de Saint-Martin (1970). 10. The proportion of students who play bridge or practice the “smart” sports increases the inearer one approaches the pole of economic power. 111, Any analysis which tends to consider cultural consumption as simple “conspicuous con- ‘Sumption,” neglecting the directly palpable Exulcaions which aliays supple lic gratfications, may well cause this fact to be forgotten, The simple ostentation of mate- ‘al prosperity although it may not have such fn obvious legitimating function as cultural Cstentation, has at least the effect, in certain Sections of the dominant classes, of vouching for success and of attracting confidence, es- teem, and respect which, in certain profes- sions, ‘the liberal ones, may serve as an important factor of success. 12. The fact that entrance into the Uberal profes- sions presupposes the of high aca- ‘demic qualifications should not conceal the fact that access to the highest positions in these professions doubtless depends scarcely any less than it does in the industrial and commercial sector on the of eco- fpomic and social capital, as is shown by the presence of a very high rate of professional Feet, particulary in thet of the ‘medi- ‘al profession where can be found veritable REFERENCES Bounoieu, P. AND DaneeL, A. 1969. L’Amour de Art: Les Musées d'Art Européens et Leur Public. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. Bouapitu, P. AND DE SaiNT-MARTIN, M. 1970, L Excellence Scolaire et les Valeurs du Syst#me Enseignement Francais. Annales I: January~ February. PRADERE, M. 1966, Heritage Social et Chances ‘d’Ascension, In Darras, Le Partage des binfices. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit.