Bourdieus notion of social capital

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Bourdieus notion of social capital

• How useful is it in understanding the social
  effects of higher education?
• Simon Marginson, 27 October 2004

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Work in progress seminar coverage

• Bourdieus notions of social capital, and social
  capital in education
• Summing up, and some issues and problems
• Applications to understanding higher education
• 1 hierarchical degree markets
• 2 institutions as producers of social
• capital
• Concluding remarks

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According to Bourdieu capital is

• Inherited from the past and continuously created
• Accumulated labour in a materialised, embodied
  (incorporated) or immanent form, which when
  appropriated on a private, i.e. exclusive basis,
  by agents or groups of agents, enables them to
  appropriate social energy in the form of reified
  or living labour
• In fields, the positions of actors (individual
  or institutional) are defined by the distribution
  of capital and the rules that govern this

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Bourdieus forms of capital

• Economic capital
• Cultural capital embodied (in persons),
  objectified (e.g. art), institutionalised (e.g.
  university degrees)
• Social capital resources grounded in durable
  exchange-based networks of persons
• Symbolic capital manifestation of each of the
  other forms of capital when they are naturalised
  on their own terms

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Conversions of capital

• Bourdieu argues the different types of capital
  can all be derived from economic capital. These
  transformations are not automatic but require
  effort, and the benefits often show only in the
  long term. Profits in one area are necessarily
  paid for by costs in another (e.g. wealthy
  parents purchase cultural capital/ social capital
  in independent schools)
• The other three forms of capital are not entirely
  reducible to economic capital they have their
  own specificity but economic capital is at
  their root.
• - Bourdieu, The forms of capital, in
  Richardson (ed.) Handbook
• of Theory and Research for the Sociology of
  Education,
• 1986

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Bourdieu on social capital

• Social capital is the sum of the resources,
  actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual
  or a group by virtue of possessing a durable
  network of more or less institutionalised
  relationships of mutual acquaintance and
  recognition.
• - Bourdieu and Wacquant, An Invitation to
  Reflexive Sociology,
• 1992, p. 119
• Note durable - and the emphasis on immanent
  social capital, on potential benefits/ capacity
  as well as actual, visible, realised benefits (as
  woulkd be preferred by, say, economics).
  Bourdieus concept of capital is distinctive

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Social capital provides a credential which
entitles them to credit

• Social capital provides each of its the
  groups members with the backing of the
  collectively-owned capital, a credential which
  entitles them to credit
• - Bourdieu, The forms of capital, in
  Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and
  Research for the Sociology of Education, 1986
• Suggestive of the role of education

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In social groups held together by mutual
self-interest

• The profits which accrue from membership in a
  group are the basis of the solidarity which makes
  them possible.

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Quantification of social capital

• The volume of the social capital possessed by a
  given agent thus depends on the size of the
  network of connections he/she can effectively
  mobilise and on the volume of the capital
  (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in
  his/her own right by each of those to whom he/she
  is connected.
• Note that greater network size is positive but
  the quality of the nodes is crucial

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The value of social capital is derived from prior
inequalities/ exclusions

• The structure of the field, i.e. the unequal
  distribution of capital, is the source of the
  specific effects of capital.
• Bourdieus social capital is constituted by the
  socially powerful and depends on the normality of
  practices of inequality and social closure

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But must be continually created and reproduced

• The existence of a network of connections is not
  a natural given, or even a social given it is
  the product of an endless effort at institution

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To them that hath shall be given (1)

• The social capital accruing from a relationship
  is much greater to the extent that the person who
  is the object of it is richly endowed with
  capital they are sought after for their social
  capital..
• The profitability of this effort rises in
  proportion to the size of the capital

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To them that hath shall be given (2)

• an investment in sociability is necessarily
  long-term
• and therefore is costly

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Centrality of education in reproducing forms of
capital

• Because the question of the arbitrariness of
  appropriation arises most sharply in the process
  of transmission particularly at the time of
  succession, a critical moment for all power
  every reproduction strategy is at the same time a
  legitimation strategy aimed at consecrating both
  an exclusive appropriation and its reproduction.
• Education a principal instrument of legitimation

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The scope of the educational system tends to
increase

• As an instrument of reproduction capable of
  disguising its own function, the scope of the
  educational system tends to increase, and
  together with this increase is the unification of
  the market in social qualifications which gives
  rights to occupy rare positions.

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Though education can also enable the retrieval of
pre-modern forms of social power

• The closures provided by certain kinds of
  institutional educational structure, such as
  select schools, enable families and kinship
  networks to reassemble and reassert their social
  power

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Distinguishing Bourdieus social capital from
Putnam, Coleman etc (1)

• A more precise notion of particular social
  relationships the mainstream concept seems to
  take in any and every association
• Theorisation in terms of inequality, hierarchy.
  Putnams arehorizontally formed networks
• Class and caste, not neighbourhood
• Closure/exclusivity not open-ended association
  Bourdieus focus is on the dark side of
  networks (dark, unless you benefit!)
• Emphasis on access to resources

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Distinguishing Bourdieus social capital from
Putnam, Coleman etc (2)

• Understanding of social capital as potential
  benefits not just realised benefits (tends to
  conflate group membership, intra-group exchange,
  the benefits of membership)
• Emphasis on long-term investment in durable
  networks not weaker associationality
• Stronger emphasis on groups themselves, less on
  social capital as individual attributes, though
  acknowledges both I S dimensions
• Norms not isolated from power and practices

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Some issues and problems

• Convertibility of forms of capital
  (commensurate, homogenous value)?
• Social capital/ cultural capital overlap
• Expansionary networks?
• Social networks that are always homogenous
  where does structured diversity fit in, e.g.
  bridging relationships?
• Social networks that always exclude? What role
  for a democratising social capital, rather than a
  conspiracy of the oppressed?

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In considering the role of education Bourdieus
notions of cultural capital and social capital
overlap (1)

• Educational credentials represent
  institutionalised cultural capital. But they also
  signify/ enable membership of certain networks,
  e.g. communities of professionals, communities of
  elite graduates (e.g. Melbourne Grammar Old Boys)
• i.e. they are also instrumental in social
  capital in Bourdieus sense of the term
• Both concepts used to explain inequalities

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In considering the role of education Bourdieus
notions of cultural capital and social capital
overlap (2)

• The economic and social yield of the educational
  qualifications depends on the social capital,
  again inherited, which can be used to back it up
• NB. though upwardly mobile acquisition of
  credentials takes place, acquisition of social
  capital follows less often

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Broader networking or narrower networking?

• The profitability of building social capital is
  enhanced by the range of networking connections
  but Bourdieus argument suggests an inevitable
  trade-off between breadth on one hand, and
  exclusivity (which enhances value of social
  capital) on the other. As competition
  intensifies, the benefits of breadth appear ever
  more diffuse.
• Note that nevertheless, many IT networks have an
  expansionary logic. If this is not building
  social capital, then what is it?

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Does education have potential as a universalising
democratic instrument?

• Social networks that always exclude? What role
  for a democratising social capital/ network,
  rather than a conspiracy of the oppressed?
• If this is not capital in Bourdieus sense (his
  notion of capital is privatised and exclusive,
  with good grounds), then what do we call it?
• Or is the implication of Bourdieu that this
  function is incompatible with (or at least
  constantly undermined by) the credentialing role
  of education?

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Applications to understanding higher education
1. degree markets (1)

• As Bourdieu suggests, students compete for access
  to the scarce cultural and social capital
  (degrees, networking opportunities) gained in
  elite universities/ courses
• Economisation of the competition (fee-based
  market) assists the socially powerful groups to
  mobilise economic capital to create social
  capital, and creates greater exclusion (and hence
  more valuable SC) in universities

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Applications to understanding higher education
1. degree markets (2)

• Note the different social roles of generalist
  credentials (Arts, Business), mass professional
  degrees, exclusive credentials
• Differential opportunities to secure social
  capital via education are field of study based,
  and also institution-based. The classical
  differentiation was always field-based (different
  cultural attributes enabling mutual recognition,
  and social networks). But market stratifications
  puts institution-based differentiation on the
  agenda

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Applications to understanding higher education
2. institutions as producers of social capital

• Universities are creators of social capital,
  enablers of its formation outside their walls
  (and sometimes foster its critique!)
• Mass education brings institution stratification
  in place of exclusion from education
• Mass universities a limited capacity to create
  valuable social capital. Largely confined to high
  elite institutions, especially at the overlap
  with formation of the professions. Alumni
  association looser than Bourdieus SC

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Analysing university networks
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Concluding remarks 1

• Perhaps it is more helpful to talk about the
  different forms of capital creating the
  possibility of the formation of each other, not
  transferring (zero-sum transference between
  capitals only part of the time)
• Not all networks are social capital, unless we
  can define capital in collective terms. (The
  notion of capital as all good things, every
  public good etc. is analytically useless)
• Volume of networks less important in constituting
  social value, than extensity and intensity of the
  interactions that take place

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Concluding remarks 2

• Bourdieu draws attention to group practices, the
  continuous work of network formation.
• More rigorous definition of networks in terms of
  mutual recognition and acquaintanceship, not just
  any de facto association
• Every network can be understood in terms of
  inclusion/exclusion. Crucial variable
• Exclusive networks protect their members from
  internal competition, and individualised forms of
  external competition, but enhance the external
  competitiveness of the group

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Concluding remarks 3

• Universites are themselves institutional
  agrregators of social capital, and also
  (inefficient) site of its production by others
• The credentialing role of education is sometimes
  uppermost and sometimes not
• Much depends on (1) how social groups use
  education and reproduce themselves via education,
  (2) how education is politically (economically)
  structured as a field, in its institutional and
  credential structures