Educational capital refers to educational goods that are converted into commodities to be bought, sold, withheld, traded, consumed, and profited from in the educational system. Educational capital can be utilized to produce or reproduce inequality, and it can also serve as a leveling mechanism that fosters social justice and equal opportunity. Educational capital has been the focus of study in Economic anthropology, which provides a framework for understanding educational capital in its endeavor to understand human economic behavior using the tools of both economics and anthropology.
Cultural capital and educational capital The term educational capital is a concept that expands upon the theoretical ideas of French sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu who applied the notion of capital to social capital, cultural capital, and symbolic capital.Bourdieu 1986 Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein explore how the cultural capital of the dominant classes has been viewed throughout history as the "most legitimate knowledge."Bourdieu and Bernstein 1977 How schools choose the content and organization of curriculum and instructional practices connects school knowledge (both commodified and lived) to dynamics of class, gender, and race both outside and inside our institutions of education.Apple 1989
Although Bourdieu went into great detail in his discourse on social, cultural and symbolic capital, he does not appear to consider the importance of educational capital as critical in and of itself. Bourdieu does however, mention academic capital in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste:
Arjun Appadurai's exploration of knowledge and commodities and issues of exclusivity and authenticity is also relevant to the discussion of cultural capital and educational capital. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Appadurai suggests “...commodities represent very complex social forms and distributions of knowledge.”(41)Appadurai 1986
Economic theories and models of educational capital practices
Ritual economy in education
In her article "Gifting the Children: Ritual Economy of a Community School,"Halperin 2008 Rhoda Halperin explores the practices of an urban community school through a ritual economy perspective. McAnany and Wells define ritual economy as "the process of provisioning and consuming that materializes and substantiates worldview for managing meaning and shaping interpretation."McAnany and Wells 2008 McAnany and Wells note that ritual and economy are linked but are not reducible to one another and suggest three critical areas of inquiry: 1) economic practice, i.e., provisioning and consuming; 2) resultant elements of practice, i.e., materialization and substantiation; and 3) the important social role of ritual practice in shading meaning and contouring the interpretation of life experiences.McAnany and Wells 2008
Halperin calls the intersection of ritual economy and ritual kinship in the community school "gifting the children."Halperin 2008 The primary entity that is produced, acquired, and consumed is the public community charter school (a nonprofit corporation) that consists of a building and a collection of educational practices and programs. Gifting the children entails a "complex set of morally driven (and ritualized) informal, intergenerational economic practices: modeling survival strategies by combining work in the formal wage economy with informal work on odd jobs...providing actual resources such as food, sometimes housing, clothing and school supplies."(251)
Ritual kinship and practical kinship in education Relationships similar to ritual kinship and practical kinshipBourdieu 1980 can play a critical role in education.Halperin 2008 Studies have shown that in many poor communities, godparents or "secular godparents" are expected to help with children's schooling.Kemper 1982Mintz & Wolf 1950Nutini 1984Nutini & Bell 1980 Community volunteers serve as secular godparents to help fulfill the needs of the children that parents are unable to meet: school supplies, clothing, food, as well as counseling, time, affection, trust, and "...inputs of resources for the future well-being of children and for their responsible citizenship."Halperin 2008 Halperin suggests that ritual kin "materialize things differently from other kin, biological and fictive...they are generous (often beyond their means)...and are generous with time."Halperin 2008 In the community school setting, Halperin observes many different forms of practical (fictive) kinship Bourdieu 1980 that are particularly ritualized (i.e., adoption, child foster care (temporary and permanent), and various other forms of nonbiological or extra-biological kinship. In The Logic of Practice, Bourdieu describes the concept of practical kinship:
Gift economy in education In his book The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, Marcel Mauss examines the nature of gift exchange and gift economy. Mauss describes a system of total services that Pacific and North American tribes participate in where economic transaction is only one component, noting that other actions take place such as "acts of politeness: banquets, rituals, military services, women, children, dances, festivals, fairs"(5)Mauss 1990 Mauss developed a theory of the three obligations: 1) obligation to reciprocate presents received; 2) obligation to give presents; and 3) obligation to receive presents. Mauss contends that "To refuse to give, to fail to invite, just as to refuse to accept, is tantamount to declaring war; it is to reject the bond of alliance and commonality."(13)Mauss 1990
Gift economies also take place in educational settings. In some schools, the community provisions school supplies to school children through gifts, "Parents model gifting for their children who, in turn carry the practices of gifting to the next generation. We could speculate that the worsening conditions of Late Capitalism will create greater and greater demand for gifting.Halperin 2008 Unlike the gifting rituals in archaic times that were designed to strengthen elite power, the rituals in the community school serve as "...leveling mechanisms with loose expectations of reciprocity in many different forms and at much later times" (258)Halperin 2008 The only thing the community elders expect in return from the children is for them to "give back" to the community at some point in their lives. Instead of social inequality and hierarchy, the intended outcome of the gifting economy at the community school is social justice and equal opportunity.Halperin 2008
In the school environment, gifting is also viewed as an investment strategy:
Schools can also engage in gifting the public by providing kids a prospect for a productive life and by keeping them out of jail. Gifting also involves sacrifice by the community volunteers and founders of schools who sacrifice time, family, and health in the name of community, kids, education, and heritage preservation and conservation.Halperin 2008 Gifting the children is much more than charity in that it insures kids' abilities to give back to the community.Halperin 2008
Examples
Local knowledge
The literature in anthropology suggests that local knowledge Geertz 1983Gramsci 1971 can play a pivotal role in the success of schools by sustaining community participation in education. The main goal of community schools is to produce citizens who are skilled through curriculum in which local knowledge holds an equal place with credentialed knowledge, thus "creating a balance between school and community"(261).Halperin 2008 The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci believed that all people are “organic intellectuals,”Gramsci 1971 in other words, being an intellectual is not just reserved for the elite or upper classes. Gramsci stressed the significance of intellectuals being part of everyday life. In Gramsci's view, intellect is not based solely on academic knowledge, “...the mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence…but in active participation in practical life, as a constructor, organizer, 'permanent persuader' and not just a simple oratore…”(10).Gramsci 1971 Gramsci further argues that the purpose of education should be "to create a single type of formative school (primary-secondary) which would take the child up to the threshold of his choice of job, forming him during this time as a person capable of thinking, studying and ruling - or controlling those who rule."(40)Gramsci 1971 Gramsci contends that in order for schools to be successful, it is critical that students actively participate in their own learning and, in order for this to occur, the school must relate to everyday life. HalperinHalperin 2008 suggests that children can act as organic intellectuals when school administrators utilize the children's desires and personal information to impact and inform the power structure, “Anytime there was an opportunity, the kids were quoted, whether it was to woo a candidate during a job interview or to convince a member of the school board that the school was indeed necessary” (258).
Halperin Halperin 2008 connects the informal educators in the community school with Gramsci's ideas of the role of the organic intellectual, “Intersections of kin work and paid work blur distinction s between work and family in the school and in the community at large….Employing community kin, insuring job stability, and keeping the peace are also priorities. These practices are all forms of resistance to capitalism, globalization, and several forms of hegemony including, but not limited to formal school structures and conventional disciplinary practices” (252). Gramsci helps to link theory with practice, with his creation of working class intellectuals actively participating in practical life, that are assisting in developing a counter hegemony that would undermine existing social relations.Gramsci 1971
In The Essential Foucault: Selections from Essential Works of Foucault, Michel Foucault also offers alternatives for thought and new courses for active learners in education in his discussion of the reshaping of the self, “…even for the slave or for the mad, under situations where the models of selfhood are imposed from outside, a certain self-crafting is required…and each crafting of a relation with the self arises out of, and entails, a crafting of one’s relations to others – be they one’s superiors, one’s pupils, one’s colleagues…” (xxi)Rabinow and Rose 2003 This idea is similar to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Rousseau 1979 understanding of the child as an “active” learner and also Paulo Freire’s conscientization.Freire 2007 American anthropologist Clifford GeertzGeertz 1983 also posits the importance of the local knowledge and common sense of people involved in everyday life: