The Cultural Capital and Success in School

Every society has different ways to operate and rank individuals within the system. Historically, these were based on birth (eg Samoan chieftain, British monarchy). In New Zealand, like other developed economies, people are ranked according to income and are called the capitalist economy. Poverty has a direct impact on the individual's economic status. The socio-economic class is an important concept to understand how socioeconomic status affects student's academic performance.

Bourdieu (1984) considers it to be a mixture of cultural and material elements related to educational achievement. To explain why the middle class succeeds, Bourdieu uses the concept of "capital". Cultural capital means knowledge, attitudes and values ​​of the middle class, and middle class cultures are capital. Through socialization of middle class children, I believe they have learned the language, self-control and reasoning skills required for the educational system to succeed in school. Gewirtz (1995) studied how cultural capital leads to differences in educational achievement. Through her study, Gewirtz discovered that cultural capital differences will make a difference in the degree of choice of secondary school parents.

Even the government recognizes the importance and necessity of "cultural" capital for "success" after school. In 2001, the federal government passed the "Law to Leave the Child" (NCLB) in order to increase the "cultural" capital of high school graduates in international markets. Alyson Klein (2015) wrote in a weekly education called "overlooking the child, an overview" that "the education system in the United States has increased significantly, feared that international competitiveness is no longer lost" . The role of the Federation in controlling schools is responsible for the progress of all students' academic work. State and school pay particular attention to improving the performance of certain student groups such as English learners, special educated students, poor people and ethnic minority children.