Field Theory in Cultural Capital Studies of Educational Attainment

This article argues that there is a double recession in international mainstream research in cultural capital and educational attainment: an empirical recession, since few new insights have been gained within recent years, and a theoretical recession, since cultural capital is now seen as a simple hypothesis about certain individual resources, disregarding the structural vision and important related concepts such as field, habitus, and strategy in Bourdieu’s sociology. This article reintroduces field theory into cultural capital research in education, taking into consideration current concerns in mainstream international quantitative research. It ends with some remarks on the consequences of this change in perspective.