Summary Of Allen's Cultural Capital

In the Allen’s reading, cultural capital refers to the informal social skills, habits, linguistic styles, and tastes that a person garners as a result of her or her economic resources. It is the different ways that the ways we talk, act, and make distinctions that are the result of our class. Cultural capital is learned through the process of socialization, which is acquired growing up as a kid. People’s class greatly influences their cultural capital. For example, a lower class White man never attended college, and does not know the cultural capital of the middle class because he was brought up in a lower-class family. One of his middle-class co-worker invites him to a house party, and when he arrived in tank top, shorts, slippers, and a pack
It is found in our posture, and our way of walking, speaking, eating, and laughing; it is found every in every wat we use our body. Habitus is the embodied in cultural capital, which is something that people we all have. For example, think of a volleyball team who plays together. The players have already learned how fundamental skills of the game, and when playing the games, most of the passing and hitting are made unconsciously. Since the players know the game, and are comfortable each other, they can set the ball and the hitter will know when and how to spike the ball. They can even perform advance and trick the opposing team because they have a shared habitus. The process is second nature as each player instinctively knows how to use their body, and does have to constantly think about what they must
Elites and upper class people received most of their wealth from inheritance. They are born into a rich family, and have such an enormous head start than the poor. If the elites’ children somehow failed, they still can depend on their family wealth to rescue them. This is not possible for lower class, who often have no wealth or savings. For example, I am a lower-class person, who lives in poverty. My parents have no wealth or inheritance that will be pass down to me. I will not have a home, and will have to work the rest of my life to finance one, and chances are that I have nothing to give to my children (i.e. if I have kids). My cultural capital does not lead me to the knowledge of those in the upper-class, and thus I only know the cultural capital of the poor. I cannot play gold with the elites because I never had the chance to learn gold in my life. Moreover, I perceive that moving up is much more difficult, but moving down the social class ladder is more flexible. Chances are that I get a job that can move me into the lower middle class, but I do not predict that I would move into the upper class or top percent in my