Social Mobility - Class Cultures and Networks

Class Cultures and Networks

Cultural capital, a term first coined by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is the process of distinguishing between the economic aspects of class and powerful cultural assets. Bourdieu found that the culture of the upper social class is oriented more toward formal reasoning and abstract thought. The lower social class is geared more towards matters of facts and the necessities of life. He also found that the environment that a person is developed in has a large effect on the social class that a person will have.

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Famous quotes containing the words class, cultures and/or networks:

    The great disadvantage, and advantage, of the small urban bourgeois is his limited outlook. He sees the world as a middle- class world, and everything outside these limits is either laughable or slightly wicked.
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    Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.
    Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)

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