A Community of Wealth: Quantifying the Cultural Capital and Community Cultural Wealth of Latinos

• In Event: Roundtable Session 100
  In Roundtable Session: A Discourse of Success for Latino Students

Abstract

Cultural capital has been widely used in both qualitative and quantitative research to examine the influence of cultural capital on educational attainment. This paper analyzes commonly used conceptualizations of cultural capital to determine whether the variables used predict bachelor degree attainment for the Chicano sample in the NELS 88:00 dataset. Our findings suggest that traditional definitions of cultural capital are inaccurate predictors of success for Chicano/a students nor do they truly capture their educational experiences. We thus operationalize Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth and suggest this as the model that truly captures the capital and potential found in the Latino community.

Authors

• Daisy Denise Alfaro, University of Washington - Seattle

• Cameron M. Lewis, New York University

• Monica Christina Esqueda, University of Southern California