Habitus, Cultural Capital, and Economic Inequality in Elite American Higher Education

• In Event: Whose Cultural Capital? (Re)imagining Cultural Capital as Central to Praxis and Action In Higher Education

Abstract

While access to higher education in the United States has expanded over time, there are still elite colleges and universities that enroll disproportionately low numbers of students from low-income backgrounds. Using Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and cultural capital, this paper examines the social forces that contribute to this pervasive inequality.

Author

• Michael Ward, Florida International University