The Moon, Sixpence, and Mobility: Work Value as Cultural Capital at the Workplace

• In Event: 20420 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 3: Cultural Capital and Taste

Abstract

Existing research on culture and inequality widely employs the concept of cultural capital, using cultural reproduction and cultural mobility models. However, few studies extend this concept to the workplace field, largely because traditional highbrow culture measures are not fully applicable to other fields including workplaces. To explore forms of cultural capital in the workplace, I revisit Bourdieu’s framework, draw on homophily theory in social networks, and conceptualize work values as embodied cultural capital—a deeply ingrained disposition shaping everyday interactions, facilitating or hindering acceptance by status groups. In this context, work values aligned with upper-class norms may function as cultural capital through homophily processes.
To this end, I employ GSS 2016–2020 panel data and innovatively apply social network methods to measure work values as cultural capital. Specifically, by transposing the original matrix and computing respondent similarity, I construct a work value similarity network, where nodes represent respondents, and edge weights indicate the similarity in their work value patterns.
Building on this, I 1) use Exponential Random Graph Models to examine within- and cross-class work value similarity tendencies, testing whether and how work values are stratified; 2) generate individual proximity scores to both their own class and higher-status groups based on network-derived distance matrices and apply lagged ordinal logistic regression to assess whether different classes receive mobility returns from cultural alignment with higher-status work values.
My analysis reveals a clear stratified structure in work values, characterized by strong within-class similarity and weak cross-class resemblance. Higher-status groups place relatively greater emphasis on intrinsic values and less on extrinsic values than lower groups, aligning with the “moon and sixpence” metaphor. Additionally, alignment with upper-class work values yields significant net financial returns for the middle class but not for the working class, which may help refine the classic cultural mobility model.

Author

• Steve Liming Meng, Fudan University