Bourdieu’s notion of social capital
How useful is it in understanding the
social effects of higher education?
Simon Marginson, 27 October 2004
‘Work in progress’ seminar coverage
 Bourdieu’s 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
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
Bourdieu’s 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
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
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). Bourdieu’s
concept of capital is distinctive
‘ Social capital provides … a
“credential” which entitles them to
credit’
 ‘Social capital… provides each of its [the
group’s] 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…
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’.
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
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’.
Bourdieu’s social capital is constituted by the socially powerful and
depends on the normality of practices of inequality and social
closure
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…’
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
To them that hath shall be given (2)
 ‘an investment in sociability is necessarily
long-term’
and therefore is costly
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
‘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’.
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
Distinguishing Bourdieu’s 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.
Putnam’s arehorizontally formed networks
 Class and caste, not neighbourhood
 Closure/exclusivity not open-ended
association: Bourdieu’s focus is on the ‘dark
side’ of networks (‘dark’, unless you benefit!)
 Emphasis on access to resources
Distinguishing Bourdieu’s 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
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?
In considering the role of education
Bourdieu’s 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 Bourdieu’s sense of the term
 Both concepts used to explain inequalities
In considering the role of education
Bourdieu’s 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
Broader networking or narrower
networking?
 The profitability of building social capital is
enhanced by the range of networking
connections… but Bourdieu’s 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?
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 Bourdieu’s 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?
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
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
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 Bourdieu’s SC
Analysing university networks
Exclusive
(closing out)
Inclusive
(reaching out)
Bounded field of Medicine?
study/ profession
Education?
Generalist field
of study
Business?
Open
(no border)
Cross-field
structure
All fields
(instituional)
Academic
unionism?
Student
unionism?
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
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
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