Dewey-- Discussing Social and Cultural Capital

     “I believe it is also a social necessity because the home is the form of social life in which the child has been nurtured and in connection with which he has had his moral training. It is the business of the school to deepen and extend his sense of the values bound up in his home life.”—

I agree with this statement because things such as cultural capital can be affected by home life. Cultural capital—a factor that can affect social mobility within society is hugely influenced by the family structure. Cultural capital is stated in Allusions, Gaps, and Glissandos in Recent Theoretical Development as being: “operationalized as knowledge of high culture and educational attainment” (DiMaggio and Useem,1978). Sociologist’s Pierre Bourdieu, & Jean Claude Passeron continue with this topic by explaining the importance of cultural capital, stating that an “individuals’ social position and family background provide them with social and cultural resources which need to be actively invested to yield social profits.” If a child is not given the family background to provide them with the skillsets to interact with different classes/cultures a child could be excluded from particular jobs, resources, and high status groups that embark these cultural identifiers. This can make it difficult for a child from an underprivileged background to achieve social mobility. This is not to say that those who come from underprivileged backgrounds will not succeed in the classroom, but it is to say that the family background of a child can determine how this child will adjust to an environment when the majority is not their own. In the world of academia there are socially acceptable cues and institutions that must be followed in order to be accepted. Some students derive from families who teach this culture off hand, others do not.

It is a mater of “code-switching” that one must perform in order to receive the most social and cultural capital from an environment. Personally, I believe that the difficulty does not lie in the action of assimilating, but instead in the action of code switching and remembering to maintain your own previous identity. Failing to do so can result in acceptance into the majority, but exclusion from an identity you once called “home”.

“True education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself.” –

I agree with Dewey’s interpretation of education in relation to social situations. Students cannot be expected to socialize and acts in ways that they are not familiar with. Often times, when students are placed into uncomfortable situations they act out, or do not participate because they are being forced to socialize in ways unfamiliar to them. I believe this is true not only in education but in other social contexts. For example, if a student moves to an affluent area for college but comes from an area with completely different social norms and cultural capital the student will have difficulty adjusting or understanding why other affluent students act or network the way they do. If you have never experienced the cultural norm, you must educate yourself to understand. This can be difficult. As discussed above, some students are more disadvantaged in the sense of receiving social and cultural mobility because of lack of capital which can result in social isolation.

“I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race.”—

Dewey explains how the process of race framing your educational experience begins at birth and continues to develop as societal interaction occurs. I agree with this statement. I believe that I am the woman I am today because of my experiences of being Hispanic and White. My mother’s experiences of being Mexican-American also helped shape my upbringing and investment into culture and education. Although I was not raised by my father, I have interacted with that side of my family. I knew growing up that his fathers family was English-Welsh and traveled here on the Mayflower, and his mothers family came from Ireland.  My identity of being Mexican and Irish has definitely shaped by experiences and much of who I am.  Because of my race and upbringing, I am able to understand and identify with others from minority backgrounds. Not many people can do the same. This is not to say that one can never relate, but I do believe that there are experiences everyone encounters that can only be truly understood by another who has gone through the same thing. Our experiences and identity shape our biases, our perspectives, and our willingness to educate ourselves.