Transmission of cultural capital and status attainment – an analysis of development between 15 and 45 years of age

Authors

  • Werner Georg Department of Sociology and History, University of Konstanz

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14301/llcs.v7i2.341

Keywords:

Keywords, Cultural capital, social inequality, life course, status attainment

Abstract

Starting with Bourdieu’s habitus and capital theory, this paper focuses on the question of whether the cultural resources of families and students have an impact on the status attainment process between the ages of 15 and 45. The analysis is based on the LifE survey, which follows up a youth study conducted by Fend et al. between 1979 and 1983. It can be shown by means of a structural equation model that there is a substantial transmission of cultural capital between parents and their children and that students’ cultural resources have an effect on their educational attainment (reproduction effect). Besides this social inheritance, the amount of cultural capital acquired by age 35 also depends on educational attainment. The effect of cultural capital over the life course is limited to the period up to the completion of vocational/professional education.

Downloads

Published

2016-04-28

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 2 (2016): Longitudinal and Life Course Studies

Section

Papers

License

Authors who published with Longitudinal and Life Course Studies Volumes 1–9 agreed to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal right of first publication with the work, simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

2. Following first publication in this Journal, Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal, provided always that no charge is made for its use.

3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on their own website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.