A Reflection on Cultural Capital. Provide three specific/concrete examples of possessing or lacking Cultural Capital and how that stance affected you or someone close to you in that situation. Follow this up with your thoughts on the moral implications of considering these events in this light.
An arts, humanities, and science summer immersion program for high school students; An award-winning student organization; A service-learning opportunity
My brother has severe dyslexia and has difficulty reading and can hardly spell a thing. At Sulphur High School, this was a difficult problem to overcome. Tom is not stupid, he just learns differently, thus putting him outside of the educational norms, and dyslexia to that degree is hard to integrate into that norm. This greatly affected his cultural capital in high school. Because Tom had trouble in the mechanics of English, he was put in a remedial class, despite the fact that he could easily understand literary concepts and theories, but he did not have the opportunity to do so. Now Tom does not benefit from the higher vocabulary and more individualized attention that comes from an advanced class.
ReplyDeleteWhile my brother was lacking in that capital, he did have the mixed advantage of coming from a middle class family. While my parents understood the importance of Tom working on his English mechanics, as well as the limitations of his learning disability (my father has dyslexia too), it was difficult for them to help him. At this time my father worked twelve hours a day while my mom was teaching at a university as well as working towards a doctorate in nursing. Tom just happened to go through most of his schooling while my parents were unbelievably busy. Luckily, because my parents worked so hard they were able to provide Tom with someone who could work with him.
Sadly, the tutoring didn’t stick. Tom had reached a point where he just did not care. He thought that since he made it this far, he could keep going. The cultural capital in terms of attitude was not something he possessed anymore. Pierre Bourdieu defines cultural capital as “…the attitudes and knowledge that makes the educational system a comfortable familiar place in which they can succeed easily.” By lowering the standards the school had for Tom, he became comfortable in underachieving, however this greatly conflicted with the standards at home, even more so because my sister and I were both high achieving and in the gifted program. Tom could have excelled in the gifted program too, if there would have been an aide or teacher that could teach in a way easier for him to learn.
I sometimes imagine Tom had he been a part of a working class or poor family. Knowing my brother, he would have probably dropped out around 16 and gotten a job at the chemical plants in Lake Charles. I know he would have done this, because so many people that I went to high school with ended up doing this because they were missing some component of having high cultural capital. They either had a learning disability, needed to focus more on working or farm chores than homework, or had a “behavior problem” that teachers would talk about with each other, thus opinions on the child were already conceived without a chance being given. While there is nothing wrong with working at the chemical plants, there is something wrong when these kids are destined to stay in the same entry-level job forever, because they don’t have the skills to advance, much less how to acquire these skills. Essentially, they did not fail out of school, but the school failed them.
Coming from a middle class white family, I was never really aware of cultural capital until I entered high school. I went to a school that integrated a wealthy neighborhood with a very low-income neighborhood. The prime example I noticed was my advantage in taking standardized tests over students from the low-income neighborhood, especially one of my close friends. My parents were always very strict about my grades, but my friend’s parents worked late and didn’t pay much attention to hers. She graduated with the same GPA as me and went to a good college, but her SAT and ACT scores were significantly lower than mine. Although she had more natural intelligence than I did, the importance of scoring high on those tests was never stressed to her, so I performed better. After that I started noticing cultural capital more often.
ReplyDeleteCultural capital can also work in the opposite direction. I became part of a group of friends from the lower income neighborhood at my high school, and being the only upper middle class girl, I was at a huge disadvantage. My priorities were completely different than theirs, and I focused on myself rather than my friends because of the way I was raised. Initially it was difficult to adjust into the group and they didn’t accept me as easily as a middle class group would. However, it allowed me to develop more complex relationships and it gave me more insight on the differences in our cultures.
Though I didn’t see it at the time, the complete lack of cultural capital in my life until age 14 had a large influence on who I am as a person. Everyone from my neighborhood had similar, if not equal, advantages in school, extracurricular activities, and developing friendships. We were all equal and I’d assumed the whole world was like that. My parents had been raised in the same environment as me, so they also didn’t see the disadvantages faced by others. My recent realization of cultural capital has made me a more active member of the community, especially in lower income neighborhoods. There will never be complete equality, but I want to help others gain certain opportunities and give them the cultural capital that can help them excel.
Cultural capital is an interesting concept, if only because it can mean so many different things. It applies, at the most basic level, to knowledge gained from social interactions and the world around us. For example, I know camp cheers from the summer camp where I worked for three years. As cultural capital on camp grounds, that stuff's gold. Anywhere else, shouting about how "Division Two kids will kick your butt" is generally frowned upon. The disparity between cultural capital that matters in different social groups astounds me sometimes.
ReplyDeleteEach group has their own easily recognizable vocabulary, which is what generally weeds out the newcomers. For example, in sororities, knowledge of abbreviations helps out a lot. All I can say about half the texts I get from my sisters is thank goodness for urbandictionary. Of course, there are many less frivolous applications of the principles of cultural capital in the world, and many that affect people more deeply than veiled social interactions.
My mother, on the other hand, teaches a kindergarten class with mostly ESL students. She tries to incorporate not only teaching them new English words, but teaching the English-speakers a little bit of Spanish as well. My mother's aide took her aside the first time she tried this, and asked if she thought this was dangerous, as it validated the Spanish students' speaking their native language. Many other teachers at her school think the same way, which is a shame. It lowers a young child's feeling of validity to totally condemn their native language, but by showing others they have a little bit of knowledge to share, that increases their cultural capital.
Each of these is different, but they all boil down to quirkiness in our human-created systems. As social creatures, we need to connect, and different types of cultural capital are the ways we make ourselves feel unique. Our constructs and this kind of capital have created a compartmentalized world where we can stay comfortable in our own zone and know that we won't let anyone into our pre-made circles. This works for some, but a greater transience and diversity in knowledge would benefit us all.
In high school, I began babysitting the then-four-year-old Autistic boy who was a part of the pre-K Special Education class at the local elementary school. When I first met Branton, he did not speak in complete sentences. He would say and do things that I could understand, but it took several months for him to begin to speak. Years behind his peers, Branton did not have the normal educational capital that most kids experience. His disease put him at both a learning disadvantage and as such, a disadvantage at just about every other aspect in life. Branton, unlike other preschoolers his age, began school early in order to catch up with other four year olds. He could not stay in a classroom all day, but had to have special attention and permission to function like a normal child. He cannot even fall asleep at night without taking pills that calm him down. Branton lacks healthy capital.
ReplyDeleteAssessing the same situation in light of cultural capital, Branton is part of the most loving, caring, and interactive middleclass families I know. His mom researches, provides, and does everything in her power to make give Branton a “normal” life. She will go days without sleeping well, spend a good part of her day on the phone with insurance companies, and have adapted her parenting to fit the needs of her Autistic child. She makes frequent visits to the school, takes Branton to special learning centers, and work with him for hours to ensure he stays caught up on his schooling. It is rare for “normal” children to get such attention from their parents, much less a family of a “disabled” child to go above and beyond what it takes to succeed. While he lacks healthy capital, Branton has the pure advantage of parental capital in order to succeed the best he can.
Finally, Branton’s school provides him with one more advantageous capital in the midst of his learning disability. It is not normal that a free-public school provides its students with the many opportunities and capitals that Stockwell Elementary provides Branton. Starting school at age four gave him a year to catch up and prepare for the next twelve years of schooling. No cost to the parents, Branton was able to get a head start. Once placed in a regular class after entering Kindergarten, Branton was still given the opportunity to be removed from the normal environment and have one-on-one time with special certified teachers that are trained to provide assistance to both Branton and his parents. I cannot think of a better place for him to be then at a school that provides every opportunity for Branton to be successful as a student; in reality, he gets more attention and instruction than most students, both disabled and normal.
Branton’s Autism puts him at both a health and learning disadvantage but his fortunate status as a middle class child raised by a loving family in a great hometown gives him more opportunities to succeed. In life, we are not in control of the cards we are dealt. Branton had no more control over his disease then he did the parents he was born to. Cultural capital, no matter how disheartening or influential it may be, is an unjust reality that prevails in society. FOCUS students can no more control the house they were brought up in more than I can control my parent’s social status. The solution and end to such advantages/disadvantages comes when society realizes that uncontrollable capitals such as health, wealth, education, do not and should not define a person any more than the weather defines the type of day one has. We must learn to accept differences and work to close gaps.
Coming to college and being a part of programs like FOCUS and FOCUS itself has forced be to shed a light on my own privileges in terms of cultural capital. Growing up in an upper-middle class community in suburban Atlanta, I was never unaware of the privileges I enjoyed. I attended three schools in one district for my education and I was able to take AP and Honors classes in high school that prepared me for a relatively easy transition into higher education. Looking back on my experiences through the lens of Cultural Capital, I can now reflect on the ways it has affected my personal educational background. Firstly, I see cultural capital as a major factor in standardized testing. Every standardized test I took in high school was administered in school and was usually an easy test for me to pass. It was clear that the information on the test was not new to me, which proves that the system in which these tests were administered was beneficial to students like me because of the amount of capital I had just as a product of my environment. I also lived in a community in which parental involvement and school resources were plentiful- another indicator of advanced cultural capital levels. These resources in the schools I attended went towards efforts geared towards school success. Although both of my parents worked full time, parental involvement in my schooling was still present. Having free evenings to work on homework and always having a ride to and from school are things that I probably took for granted at the time. However, looking back I see the presence of high levels of cultural capital that have undoubtedly had a huge effect on my educational success so far. Additionally, I understand worries and challenges that I as a student have never had to overcome which in turn increases my cultural capital. I grew up in a two-parent household in which both parents were college educated. I never had to move to a new town or district and I grew up with the expectation of college in my future. These factors all combine to increase cultural capital. Because of them, I experienced a privileged educational background and was able to fit into a system that benefitted me and continues to benefit me in the long run.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the morality of cultural capital, the phrase “ignorance is bliss” comes to mind. After learning about this concept and others like it, I was forced to look back critically on my experiences and consider the very real reality that I was the beneficiary of a system that by nature does not provide equal opportunities in education for all students. Ignorance to cultural capital and other educational factors leads one to believe in the widespread success of educational institutions without questioning real issues that face American students. After learning about it, however, a responsibility is created to improve the system in order to equally serve more people in the universally accepted goal of education.
I can still remember the first time I realized college was optional. I'm pretty sure I was about 10. I grew up just thinking that after you graduated you had to go to college. I didn't like school much when I was young, so my mom always told me that I had to go or she would get arrested. I assumed if I didn't go to college my mom would get arrested then too. Even when I found out some people didn't go, this seemed unnatural. Everyone I could think of that I was close to had graduated college.
ReplyDeleteIt seems weird now that I grew up in such an isolated world as to believe this. In reality most of the world population doesn't have higher education. Many are hungry and struggling. But I lived in the wealthier part of a white suburban neighborhood. I never saw these people.
I did very well in school. I struggled in early elementary school with reading, writing, and spelling. (I tend to think I have some mild dyslexia that was never diagnosed). However, my mother insisted that the school test me for GT again because she knew I must be smart since both my older sisters were. In spite of struggling early on, I was in GT and advanced classes by 3rd grade. My mom knew I was smart even though I had difficulty with written work because I was very verbal from an early age. I'm not sure that I would have ever been noticed as "smart" had my mom not insisted. Her push also affected me and made me want to be in those classes. After all, I felt some pressure to live up to my perfect sisters.
My mom never pushed me in school but I always felt a pressure to "do good" and "succeed in school". I know now this was the result of cultural capital: A sort of early intrinsic knowledge that academic success was important. I was taught young that being smart and doing well was important and that I needed to always try my best and do my school work. It just never seemed like an option not to. At one point in high school, I really wanted to be a hairdresser. It sounded like lots of fun. But I was told I was "too smart not to go to college".
It's easy to remain ignorant of cultural capital. Looking back, I can see much of my success in early education was because of my mom. Without her influence and struggle to prove I was smart, I likely would have never escaped the "lower classes". And indeed it was really hard to transition from those classes to advanced classes because I was so far behind. Without a concerned parent, my education would have started to lead me down a spiraling path away from success, starting in 3rd grade. I suspect this happens to many smart children who just don't start out strong for whatever reason.
After that, the pressures of the high achieving environment I grow up in: family, friends, and the neighborhood in general, encouraged me to do well. It seemed standard to make all A's and pass standardized tests with flying colors easily. How weird it seems that other students had much different experiences. Is it really a surprise that they have different outcomes? How could such things not affect a person's academics and future? I am positive that I would not be the college honors student I am today if I had come from a different environment. I am grateful for such amazing luck but it seems so unfair. I almost feel guilty for having received such advantages.
For most of my childhood, regardless of where my family was living, I was exposed to many types of literature and art. As a result, I was often described as gifted. I enjoyed many advantages because of my early exposure to literature. I did not have to worry over grammar and spelling errors, many of my tests were easy because I could read critically, and I performed well on standardized tests in all verbal subjects. Without realizing it, I spent this cultural capital, and was praised highly while some of my more hardworking friends were overlooked.
ReplyDeleteWhile my siblings and I were advantaged in that respect, we did also lack in cultural capital. We were raised by a single parent, and moved frequently. Furthermore, my mother believed in a very hands-off method of raising children, and as a result, there were educational and behavioral problems. In one instance, I can recall failing a middle school course because my mother never found time to buy me materials for a science fair project. I did not tell my science teacher because in that particular school district, doting parents were the norm and inattentive ones were an embarrassment.
My younger brother also suffered in elementary school because of a lack of cultural capital. My mother’s parenting style made him very different from other students at his schools. His peers came from mostly two-parent households and grew up with plenty of supervision, and were used to structured activities like church, organized sports, and social functions. My brother’s inexperience with this type of setting resulted in him being labeled with behavioral problems, despite his intelligence. For two years he was denied access into the school’s gifted program because of this, even though he met all academic requirements. Before he went to live with his father, he was in danger of being held back a grade.
In high school I began to realize what I can now articulate: the advantages and I grew up with had nothing to do with me and my natural ability and work ethic. Had I not grown up with a college-educated parent, I would not speak, write, or even act in the same way. I perhaps realized this most when I was praised for a science project in high school with which I helped very little, but my partner’s first language was not English, and she was overlooked. Despite her skill and hard work, I was better able to translate my cultural capital to mostly college-educated, English speaking adults, and therefore I reaped the benefits.
Conversely, the disadvantages my siblings and I faced as children did not reflect on our personal merit. My younger brother, now living in a structured household with more parental guidance, is enrolled in a gifted program and his ‘behavior problems’ have all but disappeared. The moral implications of this realization made me look at the students I went to school with, and the pattern is obvious. Most of the students who succeeded at my high school came from solid family foundations with educated parents, they had relatively involved parents, and were articulate and respectful, whereas other students who were as intelligent or hardworking but lacked these advantages got lost in the institution that valued different assets.
I grew up in a middle-class household in North Texas. I rarely had a black classmate and if I did, they were of the same socioeconomic status. With parents from suburban New Orleans, I grew up listening to racial views and was held to their standards in keeping my distance from certain races. Over the years, I have learned that people are people and there is no reason to have these prejudices. The following situations are examples of my gaining of cultural capital over the years and evolution from a conservative household to a liberal leaning lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteThroughout my childhood, I helped out my parents at their showroom in downtown Dallas. Countless breaks were spent unpacking boxes, painting fixtures and displaying samples, getting the showroom ready for the next big show. Many times hispanics were working in the building and would come in to look at our samples for sale. Dad would always say to me, "you better learn spanish in high school, because we may not be open for much longer." This and other comments showed me the lack of cultural capital my dad had, even though he grew up in New Orleans and worked in the sales and service industries all of his life. To lack the initiative to learn a language, to mock a different culture because you can't understand them, and to act like your children should follow your suit or change YOUR ways surprises me now. These moral implications of this example have compelled me to approach languages and nationalities in different ways, starting with acceptance and appreciation.
My first job during high school outside of mowing lawns and helping my parents was at a waterpark. The different people that I worked with and for was quite a culture shock. Many were offended when I was doing my job of searching their bags and looking through their ice chests. From the existing asian and hispanic populations to the growing black population after Katrina, I made quite an adjustment to my daily interactions with people and interpreting their actions and words.
Lastly, I decided to date a black girl during high school because, hey, we liked each other. I was terrified of bringing her home or talking about her in front of my parents. In fact, I didn't introduce them at a banquet that we were all at. The lack of cultural capital that I witnessed from my parents kept me from communicating openly with them and led to me unjustly ending the relationship. During our time together, I learned many things that have made my life better and more welcoming of Baton Rouge. I know that the end didn't justify the means, but also the cultural capital gained throughout the means made me a better person today.
The town where I grew up is a perfect example of the lack of cultural capital in community. The one public school is about 85% black and the private school is close to 98% white. There is a total race war right now.
ReplyDeleteMy parents moved to Homer from Houston, Texas. My father’s family has been in Homer since the 1800s. Both of my parents were raised in Houston, though, and received a college education. When my father was 28 he quit his job as an accountant at Houston Oil and Gas because he was sick of the scandal, and he could tell the company would go under. Enron bought out that company just to give you a clue about what he saw happening. Long story short, my father then tried to build a company which failed because of a lawsuit with dishonest people which lasted ten years. During these ten years, we had no money and we were on Medicaid because I was very sick as a child. My point is this: My family at one point had welfare and, with hard work, we now make enough money to not have it. So other people on welfare can do the same. Right?
My parents, though, valued education so highly that they sacrificed everything to send me to a private school. Everything includes: we lived in a trailer which had holes to see to the ground, the only meal I knew was hamburger helper, and my mother bought no new clothes for ten years. Finally, it becomes exhausting to work this hard, so my mother looked for a cheaper alternative. Therefore, we lied about where we lived to get into the public school in the next town. Until then I had never been to class with children any other race than white or on welfare. Most of the children at this school were on welfare and most of the children on welfare were black. This school had a good reputation, but it was no challenge to me whatsoever. I did very well at the beginning, but I began to make friends, and these friends were unmotivated. Soon I was making Ds and Fs. My parents realized that being around these other children who didn’t care influenced me. So I was sent to another private school and graduated third in the class. My time at public school lasted half a year.
Eventually my father’s business in Homer started recovering and we are now considered middle class. I used to think: Why don’t all of these black families who are on welfare work hard like my father and get out of poverty? I now realize the lack of cultural capital. These welfare children see one world, their own. Their parents don’t care about education like mine do. They know how to survive and they know how to get money, but it’s not the same way I see it. “Saving” is not in their vocabulary and neither is “tomorrow”. They don’t care about education because a girl knows if she has a baby she can just drop out and make a welfare check. The men who work for my father have children and “baby-mommas” on welfare. My father has bailed them out of jail numerous times to keep them working. (No decent employees stay to work in Homer.) They have also told my dad how they throw away food every week from the food stamps they’ve used because they are just going to get more. Our world is not familiar to them. Even the way they talk will immediately inhibit them from getting a decent job from a “white man” without getting to know them. Some of the black people, though, do see the disadvantages. They try to work hard and they want a college education for their children, but they can't afford the private school and the public school is horrible. My parents were able to make it out of poverty because they have an education, the resources to know how to survive in difficult times and recover, and advantages of being “white.” As the motivated children from the public school leave, Homer High School's reputation and quality of education continues to decline. Even the black population at the private school has increased because it is the only alternative. The story of Homer High School is a depressing one; even the white and black people who have fought for it have not succeeded in solving the problems there.
My mom grew up in a very rough environment as a kid. Her parents drank heavily and they never really had too much money. She has also tole me a ton of times about how overtly racist they were. She is very close with her two sisters and her brother because growing up they had to rely on one another a lot. Because of this, she is now extremely offended by sincere racism, although she does admit that she felt racist sending me to a private school, but she did it any way so I would have a good education.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather was also very poor growing up, and he was an orphan. He doesn't know anything about his real biological family as far as I know, and he doesn't talk too much about what it was like for him growing up as an orphan, other than that it was very difficult. He didn't make it very far in school despite being one of the most brilliant people I have ever known. He instilled really solid work ethic into my dad, which has definitely rubbed off on me (or at least I'd like to think so).
The last example of someone with a lack of cultural capital is my friend from high school who I played basketball with. He was the only African American on the team, and he was absolutely the best player. He went to a rural public school his whole life until he transferred to my school to play basektball. The one thing that I noticed was his lack of concern for school. He only made a 17 on the ACT, and now he is attending a community college in North Dakota, I think. I'm almost positive that if he had gone to private school he would've placed more importance on grades, tests, and education in general.
I think it's important for people's parents to instill work ethic and a sense of appreciation for education. A lot of smart kids don't achieve as much as they are able to because they grow up in an environment where school doesn't matter. It would be nice for school to matter a little bit less because the upper-middle class has essentially cornered the market on good education.
In elementary school and high school, I went to Catholic schools so I never really saw or noticed that anyone had issues with cultural capital at my schools. Now that I am in college, I see way more cases of people having money issues. In my education classes, I tutor at different elementary schools. Most of those schools have been pretty good, but I really see now how different my elementary school was from some schools that I work with.
ReplyDeleteMost of my close friends in high school all have the same middle class background, and we all have good family backgrounds. We all did well in school, and I think a big reason we all did well and were pretty much carefree was because we had a good home life. Then something changed senior year when one of my friend’s dad lost her job. My friend was embarrassed about the situation so she did not really talk to us about it, but we saw that she had a drastic change in mood. She never wanted to do things outside of school because of money issues. That started to take a toll on her friendships because we thought she just did not want to hang out with us anymore. Once she told me about what happened, I felt bad that she had to go through that. It was like all of a sudden her world completely changed. That could have happened to any of us. Even after her dad got a job again, she still seemed forever changed from the situation. That is an example close to me since I knew her and her whole family.
My sister struggles with money issues as well. She is not poor or anything, but money is definitely more of an issue for her than it is for my household. She is a teacher so she makes some money, and her husband gets random jobs from time to time. They have two children together who still get everything they want. However, I can see how stressed she is about her situation. They live in a very small house and have tons of school loans to pay off, and I can see how that affects their lives. Seeing how stressed they are makes me what to make sure I have enough money to live comfortably without the burden of loans my whole life.
Most of the people I know are middle class and live happily. I do not think that money defines who you are as a person. There are poor people who do great in school and conquer poverty, and there are rich people who make bad choices and squander their money. Money is very important, but it is not the end all and be all.
I went to high school at Jesuit, a Catholic school in New Orleans known as one of the better schools in the area due to high academic scores and generally successful students. When I first entered high school, I did not know what to expect. I only knew that school was going to be tough but it was going to make me “smart” and help me get into college. I don’t think it truly hit me just how specific Cultural Capital was until my junior year in high school. I took an honors English class that year. I had heard rumors about how crazy the teacher Mr. McGannon was, so I always wondered how he was still teaching if nothing was known about him except for how crazy he was. Once I got to his class, I quickly figured out that his class was completely aimed at getting a good score on the PSAT and ACT. My teacher was focused on getting as many National Merit Semifinalists, an award given for those who scored high on the PSAT, as possible. The whole year he would give speeches about the big day that we would “go into battle” with the PSAT (to put it into perspective how serious he was about this, he described the PSAT as a three-headed dragon, and he would frequently bring a giant sword to class to remind us of our goal to “slay the dragon”). This class made me realize the Cultural Capital present in our education system. So much emphasis is put on test scores that an entire year of my English education was dedicated completely to a standardized test. As entertaining as my teacher was, I learned things in that class that are completely useless outside of the PSAT. Yet I was given opportunities at colleges that most people would not because they did not have Mr. McGannon as their English teacher.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a wealthy neighborhood, but I did not realize how little diversity I had been exposed to until high school. When I was in elementary school, it never even occurred to me that some people did not go to college and get jobs. I always thought of the people who did not work or go to college as outliers. When I was in high school, I began to realize that it was a reality that I had to learn to get used to. It really showed me my lack of Cultural Capital as I grew up.
If there is one thing that I learned in high school that I will keep with me the rest of my life, it is my ability to cram. I pride myself on being able to jam information into my head the day before a test, and this has always gotten me good grades. I also realize that I completely forget the information if I ever have to recall it again later. However, the thing that our cultural capital focuses on is our test grades, so I can get away with only memorizing things for tests. All this has really shown me just how limited our capital is and just how much it limits society. Those who are able to adapt to the capital excel while many more qualified people are overlooked because they have the “wrong” capital. It makes me realize that people are always more valuable than the value that society puts on them.
The aspect of cultural capital that most interests me is the vocabulary. That is, certain groups (racial, social, ethnic) have their own set of vocabulary and not being aware of these terms or how they are used can make an outsider feel or seem less intelligent or even educated. I read a lot when I was younger and, until half-way through fourth grade, I went to a series of private schools that made sure each student excelled by teaching each student at their own level. As a result, when I started public school, I had a relatively large vocabulary and an innate grasp on grammar that most of classmates didn’t have. These both meant higher test scores. At the time I didn’t realize that the fact that most of my peers didn’t have access to the same resources I did, so I always wondered why they didn’t know the simplest things. I just assumed (this sounds completely terrible, I know) that I was smarter than them. After studying cultural capital, however, I realize that knowing certain words doesn’t necessarily make you more intelligent. The content of a person’s knowledge does not indicate intelligence, just education.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I’ve also been on the other end of cultural capital. I took a fiction class my freshman year and, while I really enjoyed the things we read and most of the discussions, I felt incredibly inferior to some of my classmates. During discussions, when some students could go on at length about the complexities of the metaphor in the plot (or something like that; it sounded much more intelligent when they said it), the most I could manage was a simple, “Well, I thought this one character was really great.” I didn’t have the right vocabulary to understand some of my classmate’s comments, let alone why I thought that one character was so great. It was incredibly frustrating not being able to communicate on the same level.
On a less scholarly note, I have a friend who can sometimes seem completely clueless about the world, especially the popular cultural aspect of it. I used to make jokes at her expense. After all, how in the world could she NOT have heard of William Shatner or John Lennon? To everyone who had heard of those men, she seemed ridiculously ignorant. I’ve learned not to judge her too quickly, though. With the recent flare-up of “nineties kids” references, I’ve often been the subject of the same disbelief and ridicule. After all, how could I NOT know the theme to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? What I’ve realized is that it’s important to understand that just because someone doesn’t know something that seems obvious to you, it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily uninformed or unintelligent. They just have a different set of experiences.
My strongest cultural capitol is my ability to speak. This ability is the foremost important thing that I am able to do. My parents taught me to never feel ashamed to answer the teachers question or ask one of your own. My parents were always interested in what I had to say, backing up my desire to say it.
ReplyDeleteThey taught me how to speak eloquently, formally, and with confidence.
and with my desired career in politics, this will come in handy.
But see, this is a distinct cultural advantage I have. Not only are my all four of my parents college graduates, but so are my grandparents. My parents have an expansive vocabulary, managerial experience, and masters degrees to boot.
Also, I have the benefit of parents that hire and fire regularly. They tell me about what makes a good resume, interview, and candidate.
All of these are cultural advantages I have. Cultural capitol that I have, through little or no effort of my own.
My step-cousin was born to a very different family. His great grandparents were sharecroppers, his grand-parents grew up killing and catching food and never received an education past high school. His mom is a classic example of a welfare abuser with many kids that she does not take care of.
One of her sons is my age almost to the month.
He is easily as intelligent as me too.
However, he never knew his dad, went to public school, and had a mom that hated men and would just not feed him sometimes. He soon joined a gang and was put in jail. Looking at him now if I had not known him when he was just 10, I would think he is scary, dangerous.
But he is actually a hard working, caring, smart guy. All he was taught though was how to survive in a tough world that does not like him because he is a guy or because of the color of his skin.
His cultural capitol is geared more towards survival; he knows things I couldn't even imagine how to do.
Unfortunately, this kind of cultural knowledge does not make you a manager at a nice firm with benefits.
He is a dark, dark scary 18 year old with a record of gang violence who is on probation, and was never taught how to dress up nice (much less has the clothes to) to sit confidently in front of a potential employer and empress him/her with his intelligence and experience in a culture that is well suited to the cubicle world of emails and expense reports.
That is not what he knows.
So how can we blame him for not getting the jobs I will?
Education my whole life consisted of a private, Catholic education. I did very well in school and I knew my family could provide me with everything I ever needed (not necessarily wanted). All of my friends in high school came from the same backround as myself, white middle class families. My family certainly valued education and was concerned for my future, as they put 3 girls through Catholic school all at the same time. I honestly never knew what it was like to not have a choice. I was always comfortable, I never had to live without something that I needed. I always had a concern about other people rich or poor and was interested in knowing how they became who they are today. I never knew how fortunate I was until I started volunteering in a program called Everybody Reads.
ReplyDeleteI started tutoring the cutest little boy named Diego. He loved to read, but coming from a backround where English was not his first language, it became very hard for him to comprehend what he was reading. I could tell unfortunately he was not getting the attention he needed from home. He would tell me about his mom's job at a local fast food chain and how he had to take the bus to a different house to then be picked up when his parents finished working. I never knew what it was like to not have someone there for me when I got off the bus, or have a batch a fresh brownies waiting for me as I walked in the door. But Diego had no choice but to go through school on his own.
The next school year I tutored a boy from the BoysHopeGirlsHope program. Sethan was very intelligent; however, he had a hard time transitioning from public school to private school. He went from living in an unstable environment where his true family could no longer afford or properly care for him, to a household full of boys from the same background all looking for something positive. As I mentioned, Sethan was incredibly smart, I felt as if he never knew that it was okay for him to be smart and succeed. He never understood that he had a great advantage by being accepted into this program. BoysHope really transformed Sethan and gave him opportunities he would have never achieved by himself.
Through my various episodes of experience cultural capital in my life, I have truly learned to appreciate how I was raised and who I have become. I would love to help children like Diego and Sethan and show them how much potential they have and give them motivation to achieve their potential. Both of those boys had the esteem of being a "minority," so someone was always going to be better than they were. As if it didn't matter, they were going to end up like their parents anyway. I hope to encourage the students of FOCUS to keep their heads up and prove to them that they can achieve whatever they desire.