Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion: a Critical Investigation, 2003-2005

This mixed method study uses focus groups, a national random survey, and follow-up household interviews to explore the relationships between cultural capital and a range of social position indicators relating to occupational class, gender, age, ethnicity, and location. The survey was also administered to an ethnic boost sample to allow exploration of these questions among the UK’s three largest minority ethnic groups: the Indian, Pakistani and Afro-Caribbean.<br> <br> In recent years there has been increasing interest in how cultural processes are related to social inequalities and associated forms of social exclusion. Significant social variations have been documented in participation in diverse cultural practices such as attending cinema, theatre, museums and art galleries, food consumption, television viewing and so forth. However, there have been no systematic attempts in Britain to provide a comprehensive account of the distribution of diverse cultural practices by socio-economic location, and to show how such practices are related to cultural knowledge and taste. This project was designed to explore the extent to which the concept of cultural capital derived from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, and as elaborated and qualified in the subsequent literature, might provide a satisfactory account of the relations between, and relative influence of, the economic, social and cultural aspects of social exclusion in contemporary Britain. This involved the pursuit of three subsidiary aims concerning (i) the nature of cultural capital, focusing on the relationship between cultural participation, cultural knowledge, and cultural taste; (ii) the relative weight of cultural capital in comparison with economic and social capital in accounting for differences in social and cultural participation; and (iii) the extent to which the concept of cultural capital provides an adequate theoretical basis for the development of cultural policies designed to offset and mitigate the effects of social exclusion. <br> <br> Further information about the study can be found on the ESRC <a href="http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/R000239801/read" title ="Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion: A Critical Investigation">Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion: A Critical Investigation</a> award webpage and the <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/cultural-capital-and-social-exclusion/project-summary.php" title ="Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion">project web page</a>.<br> <br>