Theoretical Background

Two models have been established for many years when analyzing the effect of cultural capital on educational attainment: the reproduction model (Bourdieu, 1986; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990) and the mobility model (DiMaggio, 1982). The former describes the intergenerational transmission of capital and persistence of inequalities, while the latter focuses on the potential of cultural capital for social upward movement (see Jæger, 2022). While European scholars often emphasize systemic factors, their North American counterparts stress individual agency (Stetterson & Gannon, 2005).

Both have in common that they do not typically distinguish between the cultural capital of parents and their children. However, at a closer look, this does not seem to do justice to the real-world complexity: Research has shown that cultural capital is a dynamic construct that develops over the life course (Georg, 2004). Also, ethnographic research suggests that children do possess their own cultural capital (Chin and Phillips, 2004). Thus, one can assume that students’ cultural capital can be distinguished from their parents’.

Moreover, the distinction between primary and secondary effects has been proven to be productive for studies on social disparities in educational attainment (Boudon, 1974). However, prior studies have mostly focused on investigating the relationship between cultural capital and achievement (Tan et al., 2019) and thus primary effects. The role of secondary effects (i.e. educational decisions) remains empirically unclear but seems to hold additional explanatory potential.

The effects of cultural capital on educational success have been shown to be highly dependent on the operationalization of cultural capital (Tan et al., 2019). However, there is no consensus in the literature on how cultural capital should be measured (Jæger, 2022; Vryonides, 2007). Most commonly, non-formal arts (education) activities are used (Aschaffenburg and Maas, 1997). However, formal and informal activities could potentially function as cultural capital, too (Broer et al., 2019; Veale, 1992).

Research Questions

In line with the mobility model, one can assume that students’ own cultural capital has an effect on educational attainment even when holding constant their parents’ resources. First, our goal is to investigate whether student cultural participation has an effect on later degree attainment when controlling for parental socioeconomic status and parental cultural capital. Second, we aim to explore to what extent formal and informal cultural activities can function as cultural capital. Third, we analyze the mechanisms how cultural capital affects educational outcomes by investigating both primary and secondary effects as mediators between cultural participation and educational attainment.

Method To examine the effects of student cultural participation on attaining the upper secondary degree, we perform secondary analyses using data from starting cohort 3 of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS, Blossfeld and Roßbach, 2019; NEPS, 2022). 8329 students are included in the sample. Cultural participation is operationalized using highbrow activities, attending a school with an arts profile, arts education courses outside school, culture club participation and arts activities at youth centers. We use step-wise logistic regression modeling with mediating effects of achievement and aspirations. Data preparation and imputation of missing values were conducted in R with analysis following in Stata.

Results Results show that the probability of attaining the upper secondary degree (average marginal effects) can be increased through courses outside school (5,7%) and highbrow activities (4,6%), while pursuing arts activities at youth centers is associated with a smaller probability (-8,3%). Results for participation in culture clubs (2,5%) and attending a school with an arts profile (-1%) are non-significant on the 5%-level. Turning to the mediation effects, we find that both achievement and aspirations mediate the effects. Including them separately in our models, achievement (16-33%) and aspirations (19-35%) mediate a similar proportion of the effects. Simultaneously modeling the two mediators results in a mediation of approximately half of the effects of the independent variables (42-57%). Taken together, our results show that students can have agency of attaining the upper secondary degree through cultural participation, which can have both negative and positive effects when controlling for family background - depending on the specific activity. Both primary and secondary effects are at work. In line with the mobility model, findings point to the possibility of upward social mobility through investment in cultural capital.

References Aschaffenburg, K., & Maas, I. (1997). Cultural and educational careers: The dynamics of social reproduction. American Sociological Review, 62(4), 573. https://doi.org/10.2307/2657427 Blossfeld, H.-P., & Roßbach, H.-G. (Eds.). (2019). Education as a lifelong process: The German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) (2nd ed.). Springer VS. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-658-23162-0 Boudon, R. (1974). Education, opportunity, and social inequality: Changing prospects in western society. Wiley. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–58). Greenwood. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture (Vol. 4). Sage. Broer, M., Bai, Y., & Fonseca, F. (2019). Socioeconomic inequality and educational outcomes. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11991-1 Chin, T., & Phillips, M. (2004). Social Reproduction and Child-Rearing Practices: Social Class, Children’s Agency, and the Summer Activity Gap. Sociology of Education, 77(3), 185–210. DiMaggio, P. (1982). Cultural capital and school success: The impact of status culture participation on the grades of U.S. high school students. American Sociological Review, 47(2), 189–201. Georg, W. (2004). Cultural Capital and Social Inequality in the Life Course. European Sociological Review, 20(4), 333–344. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jch028 Jæger, M. M. (2022). Cultural capital and educational inequality: An assessment of the state of the art. In K. Gërxhani, N. de Graaf, & W. Raub (Eds.), Handbook of sociological science: Contributions to rigorous sociology (pp. 121–134). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi. org/10.4337/9781789909432 NEPS. (2022). NEPS-starting cohort 3: Grade 5 [data set, version 12.0.0]. LIfBi Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories. https://doi.org/10.5157/NEPS:SC3:12.0.0 Tan, C. Y., Peng, B., & Lyu, M. (2019). What types of cultural capital benefit students’ academic achievement at different educational stages? interrogating the meta-analytic evidence. Educational Research Review, 28, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2019.100289 Veale, A. (1992). Arts education for young children of the 21st century. ERIC. Retrieved January 13, 2023, from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED351124.pdf Vryonides, M. (2007). Social and cultural capital in educational research: Issues of operationalisation and measurement. British Educational Research Journal, 33(6), 867–885. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920701657009