Cognitive mapping the topic of cultural capital

Cognitive mapping the topic of cultural capital

Joseph Kim-keung Ho

Independent Trainer

Hong Kong, China

Abstract: The topic of cultural capital in the subject of Social Sciences is complex. By making use of the cognitive mapping technique to conduct a brief literature review on the cultural capital topic, the writer renders a systemic image on the topic of cultural capital. The result of the study, in the form of a cognitive map on cultural capital, should be useful to those who are interested in the topics of cognitive mapping, literature review and cultural capital.

Key words: Cultural capital, cognitive mapping, literature review

Introduction

As a topic in Social Sciences, cultural capital is complex. It is thus useful to employ some learning tool to conduct its study, notably for literature review purpose. For a teacher in research methods, systems thinking and management, the writer is specifically interested in finding out how the cognitive mapping technique can be employed to go through a literature review on  cultural capital. This literature review exercise is taken up and reported in this article.

On the cognitive mapping exercise for literature review

Literature review is an important intellectual learning exercise, and not just for doing final year dissertation projects for tertiary education students. On these two topics of intellectual learning and literature review, the writer has compiled some e-learning resources. They are the Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page and the Literature on literature review Facebook page. Conducting literature review with the cognitive mapping technique is not novel in the cognitive mapping literature, see Eden and Simpson (1989), Eden, Jones and Sims (1983), Open University (n.d) and the Literature on cognitive mapping Facebook page. In this article, the specific steps involved in the cognitive mapping exercise are as follows:

Step 1: gather some main points from a number of academic journal articles on Cultural capital. This result in the production of a table (Table 1) with the main points and associated references.

Step 2: consolidate  the main points from Table 1 to come up with a table listing the cognitive map variables (re: Table 2).

Step 3: link up the cognitive  map variables in a plausible way to produce a cognitive map (re: Figure 1) on the topic under review.

The next section applies these three steps to produce a cognitive map on cultural capital.

Descriptions of cognitive map variables on the cultural capital topic

From the reading of some academic articles on Cultural capital, a number of main points (e.g., viewpoints, concepts and empirical findings) were gathered by the  writer. They are shown in Table 1 with explicit referencing on the points.

Table 1: Main points from the cultural capital literature and referencing

Main points from the cultural capital literature	Referencing
Point 1: "The term “cultural capital” has been used, with greater or lesser degrees of rigour, by a number of writers. Probably the widest use of the term is in sociology and cultural studies following Bourdieu, who identifies individuals as possessing cultural capital if they have acquired competence in society’s high-status culture (Mahar et al., 1990)".	Throsby, D. 1999. "Cultural Capital" Journal of Cultural Economics 23, Kluwer Academic Publishers: 3-12.
Point 2: "According to Bourdieu, this sort of cultural capital exists in three forms: in an embodied state, i.e., as a long-lasting disposition of the individual’s mind and body; in an objectified state, when cultural capital is turned into cultural goods such as “pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, machines, etc.” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 243); and in an institutionalised state, when the embodied cultural capital is recognised in the form of, say, an academic credential. For Bourdieu, the embodied state is the most important".	Throsby, D. 1999. "Cultural Capital" Journal of Cultural Economics 23, Kluwer Academic Publishers: 3-12.
Point 3: "Given the close connection between cultural capital as identified in sociology and human capital as understood by economists, it is useful to ask whether the connections stretch back the other way, that is, to what extent human capital has been seen by economists to embrace culture. Sometimes definitions of human capital within economics explicitly include culture as one of its components".	Throsby, D. 1999. "Cultural Capital" Journal of Cultural Economics 23, Kluwer Academic Publishers: 3-12.
Point 4: "If, in modern market societies, cultural capital is only loosely coupled to class position, from where do prestigious status cultures come? We believe that they are historically grounded in the classification projects of relatively bounded status groups. By "classification projects," we mean the collective efforts by members of emergent status groups to define and institutionalize specific cultural elements as prestigious and sacred".	DiMaggio, P. and J. Mohr. 1985. "Cultural Capital, Educational Attainment, and Marital Selection" Journal of Sociology 90(6) May: 1231-1261.
Point 5: "Cultural capital is expected to affect students' educational attainments and their likelihood of attending college significantly by (a) increasing their opportunities for special help from teachers and other gatekeepers, (b) permitting them to develop generalized reputations as "cultured persons," and (c) facilitating access to social milieus in which education is valued and in which information about educational opportunities is available. (Cultural capital is also expected to have a positive, indirect impact on educational attainment and college attendance through its positive effect on high school grades.)".	DiMaggio, P. and J. Mohr. 1985. "Cultural Capital, Educational Attainment, and Marital Selection" Journal of Sociology 90(6) May: 1231-1261.
Point 6: "Following Bourdieu, we conceive of cultural capital as the ‘stock’ of artistic participation, aesthetic practices, and knowledge individuals possess. Cultural goods have significant ‘symbolic values’ that serve to differentiate people into classes on the bases of aesthetic tastes and knowledge, reinforcing class boundaries and offering the elite an alternative set of goods for which to compete for ‘distinction’ [1]. Much like economic capital, cultural capital contributes to the production and reproduction of class ‘distinction’ and hence inequality and social exclusion [3,4]".	Khawaja, M. and M. Mowafi. 2007. "Types of cultural capital and self-rated health among disadvantaged women in outer Beirut, Lebanon" Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 35: 475-480.
Point 7: "Although a growing literature has emerged on the links between arts and health in recent years [12], few studies have examined the association between various types of cultural capital and health status [13,14] or survival [15,16]. Our findings demonstrate the importance of disaggregating types of cultural activity when investigating the association between cultural participation and health status. Consuming art or literature (i.e. reading) and watching cultural TV programs were significantly associated with reported health status".	Khawaja, M. and M. Mowafi. 2007. "Types of cultural capital and self-rated health among disadvantaged women in outer Beirut, Lebanon" Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 35: 475-480.
Point 8: "Cultural capital relates to modes of knowledge, taste and education which pro­vide social advantages to an individual giving them a higher status in society (Bourdieu, 1986). Such forms of capital enable society to reproduce itself along class lines; for example parents will provide children with cultural capital, the knowledge that makes the educational and social system a place in which they can easily succeed. These cultural attributes can then be translated into social capital, which can be seen as resources based on group membership, relationships, networks of influence and support".	Lee, D. 2011. "Networks, cultural capital and creative labour in the British independent television industry" Media, Culture & Society 33(4), Sage: 549-565.
Point 9: "... a defining factor for success in the network society is a high degree of cultural capital to facilitate access to the network and to provide an individual with the communicative and cognitive skills to succeed in this environment. Cultural capital encompasses such seemingly ‘natural’ things as taste, style and confidence".	Lee, D. 2011. "Networks, cultural capital and creative labour in the British independent television industry" Media, Culture & Society 33(4), Sage: 549-565.
Point 10: "Cultural capital plays a vital role in determining the economic and social success of the cultural producer, for the acquisition of forms of cultural capital is often undertaken in the expectation of the improvement of status or life chances".	Lee, D. 2011. "Networks, cultural capital and creative labour in the British independent television industry" Media, Culture & Society 33(4), Sage: 549-565.
Point 11: "... cultural capital is an important but neglected aspect of developing cross-border careers, and that it is especially important when social capital is lacking".	Tzeng, R. 2010. "Cultural Capital and Cross-Border Career Ladders" International Sociology 25(1), Sage: 123-143.
Point 12: "Bourdieu defines cultural capital as an indi­vidual’s command of the language of a dominant class plus the accumu­lated knowledge of socially valued norms, beliefs, behaviours, information and tastes. Garnett et al. (2008) argue that cultural capital is not simply possessed by individuals but enacted as culturally sophisticated types of conduct that support successful social interactions – for example, the ability to speak to the right subject in the right place at the right time, and to behave in a manner that increases rapport and generates perceptions of social similarities and trustworthiness, especially when meeting someone for the first time".	Tzeng, R. 2010. "Cultural Capital and Cross-Border Career Ladders" International Sociology 25(1), Sage: 123-143.
Point 13: "The most common form of cultural capital is language. English has become the world’s dominant language, mostly due to American political and economic hegemony (Crystal, 2003). The late 20th-century surge in computer software usage and the popularity of the Internet have rein­forced the status of English as an international language in politics, academia and business (Lan, 2003). In non-English-speaking countries, anyone with English proficiency is viewed as possessing language capital that can provide competitive advantages, job opportunities and higher earnings potential (Lan, 2003)".	Tzeng, R. 2010. "Cultural Capital and Cross-Border Career Ladders" International Sociology 25(1), Sage: 123-143.
Point 14: "While cosmopolitanism as openness to foreign others and cultures can be acquired as part of habitus (an embodied state) and through consumption of foreign commodities (an objectified state), we hypothesize that it becomes most clearly integrated into stratification, struggles for dominant positions within society, when it takes the institutionalized form of academic qualifications (Lareau and Weininger, 2003)".	Igarashi, H. and H. Saito. 2014. "Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Capital: Exploring the Intersection of Globalization, Education and Stratification" Cultural Sociology 8(3), Sage: 222-239.
Point 15: "... education systems operate as central institutional mechanisms that legitimate cosmopolitanism as a desirable attribute of the person living in a global world, while distributing this universally desirable attribute unequally within a population".	Igarashi, H. and H. Saito. 2014. "Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Capital: Exploring the Intersection of Globalization, Education and Stratification" Cultural Sociology 8(3), Sage: 222-239.
Point 16: "The concept of cultural capital traces back to Bourdieu (1973, 1986), who introduced the theory of economic, social, and cultural capitals as different types of resources for generating profits. Bourdieu suggested that economic capital, which refers to material resources directly convertible to money, cannot sufficiently explain the disparities in children’s educational attainment. Hence, as a theoretical extension beyond the Marxian emphasis on economic relations as the predominant source of class reproduction, the concepts of social capital and cultural capital were developed".	Lee, S., J.E. Chung and N. Park. 2016. "Linking Cultural Capital With Subjective Well-Being and Social Support: The Role of Communication Networks" Social Science Computer Review 34(2), Sage: 172-196.
Point 17: "....research on the role of cultural capital has been relatively limited to educational achievements, especially in the context of children’s performance in school (e.g., Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; DiMaggio, 1982; Purhonen, Gronow, & Rahkonen, 2011). The broader implications of cultural capital for individuals’ social and psychological outcomes have been untapped until recently (e.g., Hyyppa¨, 2010)".	Lee, S., J.E. Chung and N. Park. 2016. "Linking Cultural Capital With Subjective Well-Being and Social Support: The Role of Communication Networks" Social Science Computer Review 34(2), Sage: 172-196.
Point 18: "The emphasis of cultural capital theory has been on conceptualizing cultural capital as high-status cultural signals. Yet, there has been a call for considering cultural capital as more generalized and encompassing forms of culture (DiMaggio, 1987; Kingston, 2001). For example, Hyyppa¨ (2010) suggested cultural capital be understood as ‘‘cultural participation and consumption of various cultural forms’’ (p. 43)".	Lee, S., J.E. Chung and N. Park. 2016. "Linking Cultural Capital With Subjective Well-Being and Social Support: The Role of Communication Networks" Social Science Computer Review 34(2), Sage: 172-196.

With a set of main points collected, the writer produces a set of cognitive map variables. These variables are informed by the set of main points from Table 1. These variables are presented in Table 2.

Table 2: Cognitive map variables based on Table 1

Cognitive map variables	Literature review points
Variable 1: Drivers of interest in cultural capital	Point 1: "The term “cultural capital” has been used, with greater or lesser degrees of rigour, by a number of writers. Probably the widest use of the term is in sociology and cultural studies following Bourdieu, who identifies individuals as possessing cultural capital if they have acquired competence in society’s high-status culture (Mahar et al., 1990)". Point 16: "The concept of cultural capital traces back to Bourdieu (1973, 1986), who introduced the theory of economic, social, and cultural capitals as different types of resources for generating profits. Bourdieu suggested that economic capital, which refers to material resources directly convertible to money, cannot sufficiently explain the disparities in children’s educational attainment. Hence, as a theoretical extension beyond the Marxian emphasis on economic relations as the predominant source of class reproduction, the concepts of social capital and cultural capital were developed".
Variable 2: Improve intellectual understanding of cultural capital	Point 2: "According to Bourdieu, this sort of cultural capital exists in three forms: in an embodied state, i.e., as a long-lasting disposition of the individual’s mind and body; in an objectified state, when cultural capital is turned into cultural goods such as “pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, machines, etc.” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 243); and in an institutionalised state, when the embodied cultural capital is recognised in the form of, say, an academic credential. For Bourdieu, the embodied state is the most important". Point 6: "Following Bourdieu, we conceive of cultural capital as the ‘stock’ of artistic participation, aesthetic practices, and knowledge individuals possess. Cultural goods have significant ‘symbolic values’ that serve to differentiate people into classes on the bases of aesthetic tastes and knowledge, reinforcing class boundaries and offering the elite an alternative set of goods for which to compete for ‘distinction’ [1]. Much like economic capital, cultural capital contributes to the production and reproduction of class ‘distinction’ and hence inequality and social exclusion [3,4]". Point 8: "Cultural capital relates to modes of knowledge, taste and education which pro­vide social advantages to an individual giving them a higher status in society (Bourdieu, 1986). Such forms of capital enable society to reproduce itself along class lines; for example parents will provide children with cultural capital, the knowledge that makes the educational and social system a place in which they can easily succeed. These cultural attributes can then be translated into social capital, which can be seen as resources based on group membership, relationships, networks of influence and support". Point 12: "Bourdieu defines cultural capital as an indi­vidual’s command of the language of a dominant class plus the accumu­lated knowledge of socially valued norms, beliefs, behaviours, information and tastes. Garnett et al. (2008) argue that cultural capital is not simply possessed by individuals but enacted as culturally sophisticated types of conduct that support successful social interactions – for example, the ability to speak to the right subject in the right place at the right time, and to behave in a manner that increases rapport and generates perceptions of social similarities and trustworthiness, especially when meeting someone for the first time".
Variable 3: Effective cultural capital practices	Point 3: "Given the close connection between cultural capital as identified in sociology and human capital as understood by economists, it is useful to ask whether the connections stretch back the other way, that is, to what extent human capital has been seen by economists to embrace culture. Sometimes definitions of human capital within economics explicitly include culture as one of its components". Point 4: "If, in modern market societies, cultural capital is only loosely coupled to class position, from where do prestigious status cultures come? We believe that they are historically grounded in the classification projects of relatively bounded status groups. By "classification projects," we mean the collective efforts by members of emergent status groups to define and institutionalize specific cultural elements as prestigious and sacred". Point 9: "... a defining factor for success in the network society is a high degree of cultural capital to facilitate access to the network and to provide an individual with the communicative and cognitive skills to succeed in this environment. Cultural capital encompasses such seemingly ‘natural’ things as taste, style and confidence". Point 10: "Cultural capital plays a vital role in determining the economic and social success of the cultural producer, for the acquisition of forms of cultural capital is often undertaken in the expectation of the improvement of status or life chances". Point 11: "... cultural capital is an important but neglected aspect of developing cross-border careers, and that it is especially important when social capital is lacking". Point 13: "The most common form of cultural capital is language. English has become the world’s dominant language, mostly due to American political and economic hegemony (Crystal, 2003). The late 20th-century surge in computer software usage and the popularity of the Internet have rein­forced the status of English as an international language in politics, academia and business (Lan, 2003). In non-English-speaking countries, anyone with English proficiency is viewed as possessing language capital that can provide competitive advantages, job opportunities and higher earnings potential (Lan, 2003)". Point 14: "While cosmopolitanism as openness to foreign others and cultures can be acquired as part of habitus (an embodied state) and through consumption of foreign commodities (an objectified state), we hypothesize that it becomes most clearly integrated into stratification, struggles for dominant positions within society, when it takes the institutionalized form of academic qualifications (Lareau and Weininger, 2003)". Point 15: "... education systems operate as central institutional mechanisms that legitimate cosmopolitanism as a desirable attribute of the person living in a global world, while distributing this universally desirable attribute unequally within a population".
Variable 4: Learn from cultural capital practices	Point 5: "Cultural capital is expected to affect students' educational attainments and their likelihood of attending college significantly by (a) increasing their opportunities for special help from teachers and other gatekeepers, (b) permitting them to develop generalized reputations as "cultured persons," and (c) facilitating access to social milieus in which education is valued and in which information about educational opportunities is available. (Cultural capital is also expected to have a positive, indirect impact on educational attainment and college attendance through its positive effect on high school grades.)". Point 7: "Although a growing literature has emerged on the links between arts and health in recent years [12], few studies have examined the association between various types of cultural capital and health status [13,14] or survival [15,16]. Our findings demonstrate the importance of disaggregating types of cultural activity when investigating the association between cultural participation and health status. Consuming art or literature (i.e. reading) and watching cultural TV programs were significantly associated with reported health status". Point 17: "....research on the role of cultural capital has been relatively limited to educational achievements, especially in the context of children’s performance in school (e.g., Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; DiMaggio, 1982; Purhonen, Gronow, & Rahkonen, 2011). The broader implications of cultural capital for individuals’ social and psychological outcomes have been untapped until recently (e.g., Hyyppa¨, 2010)". Point 18: "The emphasis of cultural capital theory has been on conceptualizing cultural capital as high-status cultural signals. Yet, there has been a call for considering cultural capital as more generalized and encompassing forms of culture (DiMaggio, 1987; Kingston, 2001). For example, Hyyppa¨ (2010) suggested cultural capital be understood as ‘‘cultural participation and consumption of various cultural forms’’ (p. 43)".

The next step is to relate the cognitive map variables to make up a cognitive map on cultural capital. The cognitive map and its explanation are presented in the next section.

A cognitive map on cultural capital and its interpretation

By relating the four variables identified in Table 2, the writer comes up with a cognitive map on cultural capital, as shown in Figure 1.

These cognitive  map variables, four of them altogether, are related to constitute a systemic image of cultural capital. The links in the cognitive map (re: Figure 1) indicate direction of influences between variables. The + sign shows that an increase in one variable leads to an increase in another variable while a -ve sign tells us that in increase in one variable leads to a decrease in another variable.  If there no signs shown on the arrows, that means the influences can be positive or negative. For further information on cultural capital, readers are referred to the Literature  on cultural capital Facebook page.

Concluding remarks

The cognitive mapping exercise captures in one diagram some of the main variables involved in cultural capital. The resultant cognitive map promotes an exploratory way to study cultural capital in a holistic tone. The experience of the cognitive mapping exercise is that it can be a quick, efficient and entertaining way to explore a complex topic such as cultural capital in Social Sciences. Finally, readers who are interested in cognitive mapping should also find the article informative on this mapping topic.

Bibliography

1.      DiMaggio, P. and J. Mohr. 1985. "Cultural Capital, Educational Attainment, and Marital Selection" Journal of Sociology 90(6) May: 1231-1261.

2.      Eden, C. and P. Simpson. 1989. "SODA and cognitive mapping in practice", pp. 43-70, in Rosenhead, J. (editor) Rational Analysis for a Problematic World, Wiley, Chichester.

3.      Eden, C., C. Jones and D. Sims. 1983. Messing about in Problems: An informal structured approach to their identification and management, Pergamon Press, Oxford.

4.      Igarashi, H. and H. Saito. 2014. "Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Capital: Exploring the Intersection of Globalization, Education and Stratification" Cultural Sociology 8(3), Sage: 222-239.

5.      Khawaja, M. and M. Mowafi. 2007. "Types of cultural capital and self-rated health among disadvantaged women in outer Beirut, Lebanon" Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 35: 475-480.

6.      Lee, D. 2011. "Networks, cultural capital and creative labour in the British independent television industry" Media, Culture & Society 33(4), Sage: 549-565.

7.      Lee, S., J.E. Chung and N. Park. 2016. "Linking Cultural Capital With Subjective Well-Being and Social Support: The Role of Communication Networks" Social Science Computer Review 34(2), Sage: 172-196.

8.      Literature on cognitive mapping Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-cognitive-mapping-800894476751355/).

9.      Literature on cultural capital Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-cultural-capital-1523924181001668/).

10. Literature on literature review Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.literaturereview/).

11. Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/managerial.intellectual.learning/).

12. Open University. n.d. "Sign graph" Systems Thinking and Practice (T552): Diagramming, Open University, U.K. (url address: http://systems.open.ac.uk/materials/T552/) [visited at April 10, 2017].

13. Throsby, D. 1999. "Cultural Capital" Journal of Cultural Economics 23, Kluwer Academic Publishers: 3-12.

14. Tzeng, R. 2010. "Cultural Capital and Cross-Border Career Ladders" International Sociology 25(1), Sage: 123-143.