European Sociological Review

VOLUME 20

NUMBER 4

SEPTEMBER 2004 333344

333

DOI:10.1093/esr/jch028, available online at www.esr.oupjournals.org

Cultural Capital and Social

Inequality in the Life Course
Werner Georg
In many surveys, such as PISA, the German educational system shows a strong social
inequality, particularly in the transition to higher education (Gymnasium) and to
university. Above all, rational choice models and approaches from conflict theory are
used as tools for the explanation of these findings. In this contribution, the capital theory
of Pierre Bourdieu is tested on the basis of a follow-up survey, which refers to the ages
between sixteen and thirty-five. As a result it can be shown that there is a substantial
reproduction effect by the transmission of cultural capital in the family.

Theory
According to the theory of social inequality, educational
achievement plays a crucial role in the transmission of
social status between generations and in status selection
during the life course. Classical path models, for example Blau and Duncan (1967: 170), have demonstrated
with respect to different cohorts and countries how
parental background influences the level of education
and occupational status. This kind of analysis provides
information on the fluidity of mobility processes on the
historical and intercultural levels. However, the question
remains of what factors influence the different degrees of
status transmission and social inequality on the level of
families and to what extent these factors have an impact
on subjects further life trajectories.
An important goal of the recent PISA study (Deutsches
PISA-Konsortium, 2001) was to measure the degree of
social inequality in the educational systems of different
countries. The study distinguished among the social
structures of the 32 participating countries depending on
their position in the lowest and highest quartiles of the
International Socio Economic Index (ISEI) (Ganzeboom
et al., 1992) and compared the means of test scores for
reading literacy for both quartiles. It showed that the

differences for both groups were highest for Germany

(111 score points) and lowest for Japan (27). In Europe,
Finland (53) and Iceland (50) were the countries with
the lowest inequality in this relation, whereas Belgium
(106), Switzerland (106) and the United Kingdom (102)
ranked highest (Deutsches Pisa-Konsortium 2001: 384f).
With a difference of 97 score points, the United States
occupied rank 8. The correlation between reading literacy and ISEI was 0.41 for Germany and ranged between
0.40 for the countries with the highest inequality, as mentioned above, and around 0.20 for Iceland and Finland.
In the case of Germany, the country with the highest
social inequality in this regard, the calculation of more
complex models has made it possible to evaluate the causal
structure of this process. With logistic regression, it was
found that the probability of attending a Gymnasium
was 4.3 times higher for children belonging to the upper
service class (defined by the class model of Erikson et al.
1979) than it was for the children of skilled labourers.
Even controlling for cognitive ability and reading literacy, this probability remained three times as high
(Deutsches PISA-Konsortium, 2001: 357).
Other surveys support the findings of the PISA study.
Allmendinger and Aisenbrey (2002) describe the social
selection of the educational system as a sequential process

European Sociological Review vol. 20 no. 4 Oxford University Press 2004; all rights reserved

334

GEORG

that develops along certain junctions: the probability

that a working-class child will obtain higher education
is 28 per cent, but only 6 per cent of this group are
successful in making the transition to a university. In
contrast, 73 per cent of all children whose parents are
civil servants succeed in making the transition to higher
education, and 49 per cent go on to attend a university
(Allmendinger and Aisenbrey, 2002: 47). To obtain a
recommendation for higher education, a pupil normally needs to score an average of 78 points on an aptitude test. However, there are great differences among
different social strata: a child whose father graduated
from a Gymnasium needs only 65 points, while a child
whose father failed to complete school is likely to
obtain a recommendation only with a score of 98 or
more points.
Since the late 1980s, complete data have no longer been
available on the probability of different educational and
occupational groups being able to attend a university.
This is because, for reasons of data privacy, the corresponding question is no longer included on the matriculation form. Using data for the winter term of 1987/88,
Khler (1990) showed that only 1.9 per cent of the children
of unskilled laborers attended a university (all workers: 4.5
per cent), while 81.7 per cent of the children of professionals did so. Additionally, 67.3 per cent of children
whose fathers were civil servants, and 58.3 per cent of
those whose fathers held white-collar jobs (both with
higher education), were successful in obtaining admission
to a university.
While these results underscore the persistence of
social inequality in educational systems, the question
remains as to what factors on the family level contribute to
maintaining these inequalities. A generalized capital theory, originally developed by Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu
and Passeron, 1971; Bourdieu, 1983, 1986), might be able
to explain these results. Bourdieu distinguishes three
kinds of capital: economic capital, cultural capital and
social capital. He uses the metaphor of capital instead
of resources to avoid having to split the social world
into an instrumentally oriented economic sphere and an
innocent cultural sphere focusing solely on lart pour
lartart for arts sake. Capital theory assumes that cultural capital is a means for the transmission of social status and can be converted into both economic and social
capital. Stated more generally, all kinds of capital can be
mutually converted.
Cultural capital is differentiated into three sub-types:
incorporated cultural capital, institutionalized cultural
capital and objective cultural capital. It takes a long time
for incorporated cultural capital to accumulate; this

process taking place during early childhood in the family

of origin. According to this theory, elements of the lifeworld, such as antique furniture, original art works, classical music, a private library, photo-wallpaper showing a
sunrise at the seashore, popular music and yellow press
literature, determine the primary perception and development of evaluative and cognitive schemes in the child.
Institutionalized cultural capital is a result of educational achievements in educational institutions with the
power to define what is important and unimportant
knowledge. This is transmitted in a rational, controlled
and explicitly defined way, as outlined in the curricula
of educational institutions. Finally, objective cultural
capital refers to artifacts in the cultural field, such as
books, artworks, or the possession of special musical
instruments, etc.
How can social inequality in the educational system
be explained using the concept of cultural capital? At the
start of their educational careers, pupils have different
amounts of incorporated cultural capital and possess a
certain habitus consistent with this capital. However, the
primary school operates on the assumption of equality
in starting conditions and treats pupils with different
amounts of cultural capital as though they really had an
equal starting position. Although cultural capital is
socially constructed in special spheres of the social structure, it is treated by the school as a natural aptitude of
pupils. Such mystification means that classes with a high
level of cultural capital are able to transmit their status in
a socially legitimate way. School success signifies, for this
kind of reasoning, that the habitus of the family of origin
includes everything needed in school for the development of adequate learning behaviour and feelings of
self-efficacy.

Empirical Findings
Criticisms of Bourdieus theory of capital and its reproduction have arisen from several types of empirical
research. The empirical findings of research conducted
by Bourdieu himself are, in fact, limited to bivariate correlations between the status of the family of origin and
cultural practices or school success.
To confirm the reproduction theory, there would
have to be: firstly, a theoretically grounded measurement
of indicators for cultural capital; secondly, evidence of
the transmission of cultural capital between the generations; and thirdly, a substantial effect of this incorporated cultural capital on measures of school success or
occupational status.

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE

So far, research has been conducted only on the parts

of this causal chain that have been surveyed, and for
some data, the quality of the measurements is quite poor.
Di Maggio (1982) and Di Maggio and Mohr (1985)
tried to test Bourdieus assumptions and Max Webers
theory of status culture (1972). The data used in their
analysis was derived from the TALENT project, conducted by Jencks et al. (1960). The sample contained
1472 male and 1479 female students, who were surveyed
in different school types during the 11th form. Cultural
capital was measured with reference to factors such as
interest in attending symphony orchestra concerts, participation in theater groups and in artistic activities, serious
reading and a cultivated self-image. This measure was
used as an explanatory variable for grades achieved in
various subjects. The fathers educational achievement
and linguistic abilities were used as control variables in
the equation. The strongest influence was found on
grades in English. In contrast, only linguistic ability
(0.22 for boys and 0.28 for girls) and cultural capital
(0.17 and 0.22) displayed a significant influence, while
the fathers educational background proved insignificant. In addition, two competing hypotheses were
tested, the reproduction hypothesis and the mobility
hypothesis. The first hypothesis refers to the monopolization of cultural capital as an indicator of the status
culture of the upper classes; the second hypothesis
assumes that cultural capital can be used by the lower
classes as a means of upward mobility. The reproduction
hypothesis was confirmed only for female respondents
(effect of cultural capital for all subjects: 0.16 in the lowest group in terms of fathers educational achievement
and 0.30 in the highest), whereas the effects for male
respondents in all three educational groups ranged
between 0.13 and 0.16. Di Maggio assumes that cultural
capital has a relatively low impact on the reproduction
of the upper class, because in the 1960s the sons of
parents from this group belonged to nonconformist
youth subcultures that rejected a high-cultural life style.
De Graaf (1986) analyzed the influence of two scores
for cultural capital (cultural consumption of parents
measured by the indicators: theater visits, museum visits, visits to historical buildings and reading climate, measured by the indicators serious reading and library visits)
on the educational achievements of the oldest and second
oldest sibling in the family. He used the socio-economic
status of parents (education of father and mother and
occupational status of the father), family income and the
number of siblings as latent control variables in structural equation modelling and divided the sample into
two cohorts (age of children: 2540 and 4165). The first

335

cohort consisted of 317 and the second of 221 families.

The study showed that a familys socio-economic status
had only a weak influence on reading climate (0.05 for
the younger and 0.06 for the older cohort), but reading
climate had a substantial effect on a familys educational
achievement (0.57 and 0.31, respectively). However, the
pattern was reversed in terms of cultural consumption,
which was strongly dependent on socio-economic background (0.89 and 0.61, respectively), but did not influence a familys educational achievement. These findings
support the view, in contrast to Bourdieus assumptions,
that the consumption of high culture does not affect
educational achievement, and is more likely only an
indicator of high status culture in Webers sense (1972).
In contrast, reading climate, referring to linguistic and
cognitive skills, does influence educational achievement
in a strong way. However, this influence is only slightly
less than half as strong in the younger cohort.
For the problem of measuring cultural capital mentioned above, De Graaf et al. (2000) propose a differentiation of cultural consumption and reading behaviour.
They argue that in a country with a modernized school
system such as the Netherlands, in contrast to France,
high culture is not as strongly interconnected with curriculum. However, they assume that sophisticated reading behaviour on the part of parents leads to the
development of cognitive and linguistic skills that make
it easier for siblings to succeed in a modern and democratic school system. In a second step, the authors test
Di Maggios (1982) reproduction and mobility hypothesis
using a sample of 1653 respondents from the Dutch
family survey of 1992/93. On this basis, they computed
three nested regression models, whereby the first model
describes the influence of cohorts, gender, incomplete
families, parental education and fathers occupational
status on the childs educational achievement. They
found that parental education has a much stronger
influence on the childs educational status than the
occupational position of the father (0.36 vs 0.14). In a
second step, a composite measure of cultural capital
containing five items for cultural consumption and
reading behaviour was added to the model. As a result,
the predictive power of parental education fell by 33 per
cent and that of occupational status by 57 per cent. In a
final step, they decomposed the common scale for cultural
capital into two subclasses for cultural consumption and
reading behaviour. In this version of the model, only
parental reading behaviour had a significant influence
on the childs educational status (0.17 vs 0.04). To test
the reproduction and mobility hypothesis, in the last two
versions of the model reference was made to interaction

336

GEORG

effects between parental educational achievements and

the various measures of cultural capital. The common
scale for cultural capital contained a strong negative
effect (0.35), indicating that children from lower educational groups use cultural capital as a means of
upward mobility. A decomposition of both measures
produced an insignificant effect for cultural consumption, while reading behaviour had nearly the same
predictive power as the common score (0.31). These
results can be summarized as follows:
Unlike Bourdieus findings for France in the 1960s
and 1970s, the consumption of high culture is no longer
a strong factor in explaining school success in modern
educational systems such as the Dutch system. However,
a crucial measure of cultural capital proved to be reading
behaviour as an indicator of cognitive and linguistic
skills. Cultural capital is primarily an instrument to
achieve upward mobility and is not used as a means of
social closure by high status groups.
Sullivan (2001) refers to the studies mentioned above
and criticizes the state of research, insofar as up until the
present the basic causal process has been modeled only
incompletely. In a survey of 465 pupils at four English
forms in the 11th class (by age 16), she asked, besides the
usual socio-structural variables, about students different cultural activities in the areas of reading, TV consumption, musical taste, participation in high cultural
events, and finally tests of linguistic abilities and cultural
knowledge. Additionally, students were asked about
their parents cultural capital, measured by the number
of books in the home, parental reading habits, their
music and media consumption, and finally their participation in high cultural activities and topics discussed at
home. In the statistical analysis, the influence of cultural
capital on childrens school success was modelled in
three steps: firstly a regression model was computed that
used parental education, their occupational status
(according to Erikson et al., 1979), gender and the
school type attended as predictors for the cultural activities of children. Found to be significant were membership in the upper service class and a university diploma.
A further model was completed of parents cultural
activities. In this model, all previously significant effects
disappeared, and only cultural capital had a significant
influence (variance explained by this variable: 23.3 per
cent). These results provide evidence for the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital.
In two further steps, the subsequent influence of the
above-named variables on performance on the linguistic
and cultural knowledge test was modelled. As a result, it
was above all the consumption of serious TV programs

(explained variance: 4.2 per cent) and serious reading

(2.1 per cent) that proved to be important predictors,
while musical activities and participation in formal culture did not have any substantial influence. Similar
results were found for the knowledge test, except that
the order was reversed (reading: 3.5 per cent, TV consumption: 2 per cent). As the final link of the causal
chain, the influence of the variables named above on
school success, measured by a composite score of all
grades, was analyzed. Besides the scores of both ability
tests (each around 11 per cent), it was again reading
behaviour (2.5 per cent) and TV consumption (1 per
cent) that displayed a significant effect.
In conclusion, this analysis was successful (even if the
measurement was imperfect, because parental behaviour
was measured by the respondents for their own children) in modelling the effects of cultural capital, starting
with the transmission and stimulation of differential
scores on ability tests and ending with effects on school
performance. Again, it was reading behaviour and not
participation in high culture or musical activities that
influenced aptitudes and success at school. A remaining
desideratum is that the modelling of the causal effects
was done in successive models and not simultaneously,
and this way of modelling can seriously bias the estimated coefficients.
Finally, Baumert and colleagues (2003) analyzed the
transmission of social inequality using a three-level
structural model with the PISA database for East and
West Germany. As exogenous variables, family socioeconomic status (measured by the highest ISEI), educational attainment (indicated by the highest educational
level attained), immigrant status (national origin) and
length of residence in Germany were used as manifest variables. On the level of intervening effects, three latent variables that conceptualized cultural practice in Bourdieus
sense (investment in cultural goods such as books and
artworks, group cultural activities in the family), communicative practice in the sense of social capital (Coleman,
1988) and consumption behaviour (acquisition of luxury
goods, etc.) were introduced into the model. Additionally,
the number of siblings and the language spoken at home
were used as manifest variables on this process level.
Finally, the score on the ability test for reading literacy was
used as the dependent variable in the model.
In the model for West Germany, 36 per cent of the
variance in reading literacy could be explained. While
cultural practice proved a strong predictor of reading
literacy (0.40), consumption behaviour and social capital
(communicative practice) did not have a substantial
influence on test scores. In addition, the number of

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE

siblings (0.13) and German as the language used in the

home (0.16) had only a weak influence on reading literacy. Depending on family background, cultural practice
was strongly influenced by the familys socio-economic
(0.31) and educational (0.38) status, while social capital
was relatively independent of both factors (0.11 and 0.15,
respectively). Finally, consumption behaviour showed a
mid-level of dependency (0.20 and 0.14, respectively). In
East Germany, the amount of explained variance in reading literacy was substantially lower (26 per cent), but the
predictions of this test score showed nearly the same patterns as in West Germany. However, cultural practice was
less dependent on the socio-economic (0.24) and educational (0.34) status of the family, and the familys
national origin had lower indirect effects on the reading
literacy score. The authors conclude that a concept of
cultural capital that exclusively transmits the effects of
social class (socio-economic and educational status) in
the model clearly has a much higher construct validity
than Colemans concept of social capital.
What inferences can be made against the background
of the empirical studies discussed so far? As a general
conclusion, cultural capital is clearly a core concept in
the transmission of social inequality between the generations in different countries, but there seems to be a tendency in modern school systems for it not to be
participation in high-status cultural activities that is the
crucial aspect of cultural capital for the transmission of
social inequality, but rather the familys reading behaviour and culture. When the latent variable for cultural
capital in the study by Baumert and colleagues (2003) is
decomposed into a measure for visits to cultural institutions (museums, theaters, opera houses) and one for
reading behaviour (number of books, possession of
books on classical literature and poetry, etc.), only reading behaviour has a significant effect on reading literacy
(own computations, publication in progress).
It remains unclear whether cultural capital is used by
higher status groups as a means for the reproduction of
social status or by the lower social strata for upward
mobility. Di Maggios results (1982) support the first
hypothesis for girls only, whereas De Graaf et al. (2000)
have found evidence to support the second.
Most of the above-mentioned studies have certain
shortcomings due to sample design or the measurement
of cultural capital. De Graaf (1986) criticizes Di Maggio
(1982) for providing data only on the cultural participation of pupils, but not on parental cultural capital, which
detracts from the survey of the transmission process. On
the other hand, the data used by De Graaf contains
information only on parental activities. Sullivan (2001)

337

reconstructs parental cultural capital using information

given by children, a method that is problematic in terms
of data validity.

Research Questions and

Hypotheses
To correct the shortcomings of the research on cultural
capital and social reproduction discussed thus far, it
would be desirable to compare different measures (i.e.
reading behaviour and cultural consumption) that have
been surveyed for both parents and children to model
the specific transmission processes and finally to predict
the influence of these dimensions on the trajectory of
social status in the life course. However, the data at hand
do not provide this complete information, and the subsequent analysis is restricted to segments of this model.
Firstly, we are limited to composite measures of cultural
capital containing indicators for both reading behaviour
and cultural consumption. Secondly, we can predict the
influence of these measures only on educational attainment and present occupational status. Against this background, the following research questions and hypotheses
can be derived from Bourdieus theory and the research
literature reviewed so far:
Classical path models of status attainment (Blau and
Duncan, 1967) conceptualize the direct transmission of
parents educational attainment to childrens educational trajectories. These models can be used to describe
the fluidity and social mobility (or social closure) of different societies. However, it remains unclear what causal
processes cause this transmission of social status from
one generation to the next. As Bourdieu theorized, family cultural resources could be a core concept in explaining the inheritance of social status. This would mean
that, after controlling for the direct transmission effect
between the educational attainments of parents and
children, there should be a substantial indirect effect
functioning via parents cultural resources and their
transmission to children.
Hypothesis 1: besides a direct transmission effect
between the educational attainments of parents and children, there is an indirect effect that refers to the transmission of cultural resources from parents to children and a
subsequent effect on childrens educational attainment.
Furthermore, Bourdieu claims that the influence of
incorporated cultural capital is not limited to the end
result of the educational process, but also influences
occupational careers, because the direction of complex
cultural codes leads to competitive advantages.

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GEORG

Hypothesis 2: cultural resources influence not only

the level of educational attainment, but also occupational status.
According to Bourdieu, habitus is incorporated during
primary socialization and becomes a dominant component of a persons personality over the life course. In this
connection, he speaks of the hysteresis-effect, i.e. if a
persons actual resources change, the habitus of origin
will guide behaviour and life style in a consistent way.
With respect to cultural capital, this would mean that
once accumulated in youth and childhood, a high level
of stability is to be expected over the life course.
Hypothesis 3: the amount of cultural capital available
during the life course does not change substantially.

Data and Measures

The following analyses are based on a follow-up study of
a student survey using a panel design, made by Fend and
colleagues between 1979 and 1983. In 1983, the students
had a mean age of 16 and in 2002 of 35 years. The survey
subsumes one cohort of municipalities of the city of
Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Bockenheim, Westend,
Nordwestadt) and the chiefly rural county of Odenwald
in the state of Hessen (where Frankfurt is also located).
In these areas, interviews were conducted with students in all types of schools (elementary school, secondary modern school, grammar school and comprehensive
school) who where in the 6th class in 1979. Altogether,
2897 students participated at least at one measurement
point of the panel, and 1790 took part in all four panel
waves. Due to absence, repetition of classes, and moving
each year, about 14 per cent of each class changed (i.e.
this proportion dropped out and was completed each
year). Besides the main sample, sub-samples were collected in order to analyze test- and cohort-effects. Furthermore, in 1980 and 1982 a panel sample of parents
was surveyed that was completed in 1979, 1980 and 1982
using a teachers sample.
With an address-inquiry, 2021 of the original 2897
respondents who had been questioned once could be
located. Because the addresses proved incorrect in 154
cases, the final sample consisted of 1867 persons, of
whom 1527 (81.8 per cent) participated in the follow-up
survey. A significant selection bias in this sample compared to the original survey can be noted with respect to
nationality (Germans participated to a higher degree),
place of residence (residents of bigger cities are underrepresented), social class (the higher the social status, the
less willing they were to respond) and type of school

(higher panel-mortality of students from elementary

schools). The questionnaires were mailed out in spring/
summer 2002 using the Total Design Method proposed
by Dillmann (1978), i.e. besides offering an incentive
(10E), a letter was sent as a reminder, and all nonresponders received a follow-up call after a certain
period of time. These methods increased the response
levels by 15.7% and 22.2%, respectively. The follow-up
questionnaire contained a great number of subjective
and objective indicators for the areas of schooling and
profession, family of origin, partnership and marriage,
social network, politics and values, leisure time, life style,
as well as mental and physical health.
In the structural equation model presented below, the
following measures were used:
Parents of respondents in 1980:
Frequency of reading during the last three months
(1 = never 4 = more often than twice a month)
Attending courses for further training in the last three
years (1 = never 3 = more often than twice)
Number of books in the home
Highest level of educational attainment of father and
mother (1 = low level 3 = high level)
Respondents in 1983:
Frequency of practicing on musical instruments
(1 = never 4 = very often)
Frequency of conversations with peers on books, theater, movies and fine arts (1 = never 4 = very often)
Frequency of reading books (1 = never 4 = very often)
Frequency of listening to classical music (1 = never
4 = very often)
Respondents in 2002:
Frequency of serious reading (1 = never 5 = very often)
Frequency of attending classical music concerts, theater
and art exhibitions (1 = never5 = very often)
Frequency of writing texts (1 = never 5 = very often)
Frequency of listening to classical music and jazz
(1 = never 5 = very often)
Highest educational attainment (1 = elementary school
5 = Abitur, i.e. the equivalent of obtaining a high
school diploma)
Occupational education (ranging from apprenticeship
to university)
Socio-economic status of occupation according to the
International Socio-Economic Index (Ganzeboom
et al., 1992)

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE

339

Year of Panel-Wave
Age

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983
STUDENTS

A
62

12

2054
A+B
129

13

2047

14

264

2003

246

15

16

A+B+C
2932

1952

161

A+B+C+D
287

1790*

Test Group

Main Group

Parallel Group

138

229

178

TEACHERS

988

590

PARENTS

Figure 1 The numbers show the complete sample size per year of the panel. *About: 128 school leavers (usually apprentices);
112 students who left school (usually vocational schools); 1550 students of secondary schools, high schools, comprehensive
secondary schools
Source: Fend 1998:54

The Appendix shows the mean and standard deviation

of these measures.

Analysis
In order to test the three hypotheses described above, a
structural equation model was developed that implied
the following measurement model for the data: parental
cultural capital was indicated by the frequency of reading, as well as of attending courses for further training in
the last three months, and the number of books in the

home. Indicators of the childs cultural capital were the

frequency of practicing on musical instruments, of conversations with peers on theater, movies, books and the
fine arts, of reading books and listening to classical
music. By age 35, cultural capital was measured by the
frequency of serious reading, attending theaters, classical concerts and art exhibitions, writing texts and the
consumption of classical music or jazz.
Socio-structural latent variables were measured as
follows: the educational attainments of parents were
indicated by the educational status of father and mother,
the respondents educational level, subsuming both

340

GEORG

school and vocational education, and finally present status was measured as a manifest indicator by the ISEI of
the respondents occupation.
Different indicators were used for the measurement of
parental cultural capital, for students at age 16 and adults
at age 35. This is because cultural capital means something completely different for an adolescent as opposed
to a middle-aged adult, and accordingly a parallel measurement on the nominal level would suggest an identity
that cannot be assumed from a developmental point of
view.
On the structural level, firstly a direct path was
assumed between the educational status of parents and
children, referring to the reproduction effect of educational attainment. Furthermore, the educational status
of the parents was assumed to influence their cultural
capital. Students cultural capital was assumed to affect
their educational attainment, cultural resources by age
35 and the status of their present occupation. Finally, it
was assumed that the educational status of former pupils
had an impact on their occupational status and cultural
capital in 2002, which in turn influenced their present
ISEI. With this model, it is possible to analyze the transmission of cultural capital between parents and children,
the stability of cultural resources in the life course
(between the ages of 16 and 35) and the longitudinal
effects of educational background and cultural capital at
different stages of the life course on educational attainment and occupational status. For the first hypothesis,
the path from parents educational level to their cultural
capital, the transmission path from this capital to children and the influence of childrens cultural resources
on their educational attainments are crucial. Only if all
three paths are significant, can a reproduction effect via
cultural capital be shown. The second hypothesis, that
predicts the continuing influence of cultural capital over
the life course, can be tested by the influence of present
and past cultural capital on occupational status. Finally,
hypothesis 3, the stability hypothesis for cultural capital,
is conceptualized in terms of the path between childrens
past and present cultural capital.
The model was created using a Maximum Likelihood
estimator, a covariance matrix and the CALIS procedure
in SAS. A pair-wise deletion of missing data resulted in a
sample size of 548 respondents. The large reduction from
1527 respondents to 548 cases for the actual analysis was
necessary, because only 988 parents were interviewed in
1980, and not all of their children participated in the follow-up in 2002. A selection bias resulted from the measures used for the analysis. Significant differences (using
a t-test) from the original sample are due, e.g. to a

mothers higher educational level, more books in the

home and a higher level of educational attainment,
vocational education and ISEI. Taken together, the
respondents included in the analysis display a bias
towards higher social status and more cultural skills and
practice than the subjects of the original sample. This
finding is problematic for the use of advanced techniques of missing value treatment, because one assumption of the underlying EM algorithm is a random
structure of missing values, lacking in the present case.
One might argue that the generalizability of the results is
limited by the selection bias; on the other hand, this is an
unsolvable problem in all long-term panels (19 years in
the present case). Consequently, this bias should be
taken into account, and the results should be interpreted
cautiously.
While the model could not be accepted using chisquare statistics, the RMSEA of 0.04 displays a close fit of
the model to the population (Browne and Cudeck
1993). The measurement model indicates that the number of books in the home is clearly the best single indicator of parents cultural capital. While by age 16 nearly all
items for cultural resources have the same importance
for the construct, producing texts is the worst indicator
in 2002. This finding could be explained by the fact that
all other indicators refer to the consumption of formal
culture.
The transmission effect of cultural capital from parents to children (0.44) displays a strong influence in the
learning of cognitive schemes between the generations in
primary socialization and supports Bourdieus theory of
habitus inheritance. However, even more interesting is
the finding that a high cultural orientation remains very
strong (0.61) in the period of nearly 20 years between
early adolescence and adulthood. The influence of cultural capital on the status attainment process is substantial only until vocational education is completed, and
present occupational status is only significantly affected
by educational attainment, which can best be predicted
by parental educational status (0.51) and independently
of this by cultural capital up to age 16. However, adult
cultural capital in 2002 is also affected by the educational
attainments of the respondents (0.21), a result that
underlines the importance of the development of cultural resources over the life course, in addition to inheritance from the social background. In this model, we do
not find a longitudinal effect of primary or present
cultural capital on occupational status.
The first hypothesis, arguing for a subsequent influence of the inheritance of cultural capital on the childs
educational attainment, is confirmed by these findings.

Listening to
classical music

Reading books

Conversation on
books, theater

Music
instruments

Number of
books

Visit of courses
in 3 months

Frequency of
reading

.47

.35

.42

.90

.41

.86

.42

F3
Cultural Capital
of Child (1983)

.44

F2
Cultural Capital
of Parents
(1980)

.20
.80

.65

.76

.75

F4
Educational
Status of adult
Child

.51

.66

.21

.60

.69

.75

.61

.63

.43

Hearing classical
music

Writing texts

.70

Visits of classical
concerts, theater

Serious reading

.78

.90

.77

.79

Chi-Square:210.90
DF:105
RMSEA:.04
CFI:.95
GFI:.96

.64

.80

F5
Cultural Capital
of adult child
(2002)

.73

.65

F6
Occupational
Status of adult
Child (2002)

.61

Education of
mother

Education of
father

Figure 2 Structural Equation Model with Status of Parents, Cultural Capital of Parents (1980) and Child (1983), Educational and Occupational Status and
Cultural Capital of Adult Child in 2002 (Standardized Solution, all coefficients significant on the 5% level)

.87

.94

.91

.92

.53

.90

.86

.51

.77

School
Education

.64

F1
Educational
Status of
Parents

Vocational
Education

1.00

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE

341

342

GEORG

Besides a direct transmission effect (0.51), there is an indirect reproduction effect via cultural capital (educational
attainment of parents cultural capital: 0.77; transmission to child: 0.44; cultural capital of child educational
status: 0.20). The third hypothesis, which claims a high
stability of cultural capital over the life course, was
impressively supported (cultural capital 1983 cultural
capital 2002: 0.61). However, we must reject the third
hypothesis, because there is no effect of cultural capital
on present occupational status.

Discussion
This paper began with recent findings (Deutsches PISAKonsortium, 2001) that underscore the persistence of
social inequality despite the expansion of the educational sector. As a theoretical framework for the explanation of this fact, Pierre Bourdieus generalized capital
theory is still the dominant paradigm (Baumert et al.,
2003). However, an overview of empirical findings in
this field showed that the evidence is much weaker than
the theoretical assumptions developed by Bourdieu.
Firstly, it seems that it is not participation in formal
culture that is the crucial measure for the inheritance
and reproduction of status, but rather the reading
climate and habits of the family. Secondly, some studies
(Di Maggio, 1982; De Graaf et al., 2000) show that cultural capital is used not only, and mainly, to achieve social
closure and the reproduction of high status groups, but
also as a means of upward mobility by the lower classes.
Thirdly, the effects of cultural capital on school success
were by no means as deterministic as predicted by Bourdieus theory. However, it must be mentioned that the
empirical findings of all studies are consistent insofar as
certain measures of cultural capital had an effect on performance at school independently of family educational
background. What has not been previously surveyed in
an adequate way is the process of transmitting cultural
capital, its stability over the life course and the sequential
effects on the status attainment process. With data from
a 19 year follow-up study on the development of former
pupils, an attempt was made to meet this desideratum.
As a limitation on the generalizability of the data, it has
to be stated, however, that the panel-mortality shows an
under-representation of children from foreign backgrounds, higher social strata and with respect to place of
residence. Additionally, there were differences in the
measures used for cultural capital in 1983 and 2002.
While reading books (with an emphasis on serious reading in 2002) and listening to classical music were part of

the construct in both panel waves, instead of conversations on cultural topics (1983), attendance of cultural
events was used as a measure in 2002. These different
indicators refer to developmental differences in the measurement of cultural capital by the ages of 16 and 35.
Discussing cultural topics with peers is an age-equivalent
item, while for young adults attendance of cultural
events is a far better indicator. The main differences in
the construct can be seen in practice on musical instruments (which is typical of a culture-oriented life style in
the family of origin), and the production of texts,
which can be regarded as an adult equivalent of personal cultural practice.
By means of structural equation modeling, it could be
shown that there is a strong transmission effect between
parents and children (0.44) in the data and that orientation to formal culture is very stable (0.61) over the life
course between adolescence and adulthood. This striking
stability could be interpreted in accord with Bourdieus
assumption about the hysteresis of habitus. Once established in childhood and youth as a learned scheme for
the production of cultural practice and the evaluation of
the practices of other classes, habitus possess a stability
that may be contrasted with actual disposal over economic, cultural and social resources. However, the only
substantial effect of cultural capital on status attainment
had occurred by the time occupational education was
completed. Nor did cultural capital by age 16 affect
present occupational status, and this effect was not displayed by cultural capital in 2002. As a result, it seems
that the effect of social inheritance is limited to transmission from late adolescence to early adulthood (up to
the end of occupational education), and the later process
of social positioning is predominantly influenced by
institutional linkages between the educational and occupational systems (via grades). This result conflicts with
Bourdieus assumption that the habitus of origin determines the whole life course trajectory from primary
education to occupational career. In contrast, it seems
that once secondary school qualification is acquired, the
further process of status attainment develops in a much
more meritocratic way than is assumed by Bourdieus
capital theory.

Acknowledgements
This paper is based on data of the research project Pathways from Late Childhood to Adulthood. Context and
Development in Adolescence as Predictors of Productive
Life-Courses (Lebensverlufe Ins Frhe Erwachsenenalter:

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN THE LIFE COURSE

LIFE) by Fend, Georg, Berger and Lauterbach. The

project was financed by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Schweizer Nationalfond. I especially want to
thank Maria Jimenez Hernandez, who computed a
former version of the structural equational model.

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Authors address
Universitt Konstanz, Universittsstrae 10, Fach D20
D-78457 Konstanz, Germany. Email: Werner.Georg@
uni-konstanz.de
Manuscript submitted: September 2003

344

GEORG

Appendix
Mean and standard deviation of measures used in the analysis
Variable

Mean

Educational level of father

Educational level of mother
Frequency of reading books (parents)
Courses for further training (parents)
Number of books
Practicing on musical instruments (child)
Conversations about books etc. (child)
Reading books (child)
Listening to classical music (child)
Highest educational attainment (child)
Highest level of vocational education
Serious reading (2002)
Attending classical music concerts etc. (2002)
Writing texts (2002)
Listening to classical music (2002)
ISEI

1.48
1.39
2.56
1.48
2.54
1.65
2.30
1.46
2.52
2.74
2.11
2.11
2.07
1.83
2.14
47.62

Standard deviation

0.71
0.61
1.22
0.78
0.92
0.73
0.83
0.70
1.13
1.09
1.04
1.04
0.88
0.97
1.12
15.05