Testing ‘cultural reproduction theory’ against relative risk aversion theory – some remarks

The aim of this research note is to discuss inherent limitations in certain established, but problematic, conventions for operationalizing and testing Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural reproduction. These conventions entail a selective focus on the concept of capital at the expense of the concept of habitus. Our point is that blinding out the important concept of habitus amputates the theory, and that a test built upon this limitation is not a test of Bourdieu’s theory as a whole, but rather a straw man construction ignoring important parts of the theory. This has strong implications when seeking to test statistically the viability of Bourdieu’s theory, particularly vis-a-vis rational choice alternatives, and especially where these limitations are not adequately reflected in the interpretation of results and in conclusions.