Cultural reproduction, a concept first developed by French sociologist and cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu,Jenks, Christopher. 1993. "Cultural Reproduction." New York: Routledge. p. 2.Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1990. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. SAGE Publications. . is the mechanisms by which existing cultural forms, values, practices, and shared understandings (i.e., norms) are transmitted from generation to generation, thereby sustaining the continuity of cultural experience across time.Chandler, Daniel, and Rod Munday. 2011. "cultural production." In A Dictionary of Media and Communication. Oxford University Press, as adapted in "cultural production." Oxford Reference.Glossary of Sociological Terms. New Zealand: University of Canterbury, School of Sociology and Anthropology. 1997. In other words, reproduction, as it is applied to culture, is the process by which aspects of culture are passed on from person to person or from society to society.Bilton, Tony. 1996. Introductory Sociology (3rd ed.). London: Macmillan. This often occurs through the relationship between parent's and their children. Cultural reproduction occurs through the normalization of behavior, language, and mannerisms that are passed down, often without being explicitly questioned.
Cultural reproduction often results in social reproduction, or the process of transferring aspects of society (such as class) intergenerationally. There are various ways in which such reproduction can take place. Often, groups of people, notably social classes, may act to reproduce the existing social structure so as to preserve their advantage. Likewise, processes of schooling in modern societies are among the main mechanisms of cultural reproduction, and do not operate solely through what is taught in courses of formal instruction.Giddens, Anthony. 1997. "Pierre Bourdieu." Polity Press, Vol. 581. Historically, people have moved from different regions, taking with them certain cultural norms and traditions. Cultures transmit aspects of behaviour that individuals learn in an informal way while they are out of the home. This interaction between individuals, which results in the transfer of accepted cultural norms, values, and information, is accomplished through a process known as socialisation. At birth, a child is shaped by a combination of what is given to them naturally, their environmental conditions, and the values or resources passed down to them from their parents.
Methods
The method through which cultural reproduction is perpetuated varies by the socialising agent's relative location, awareness, and intention to reproduce social or cultural norms.
Enculturation
Enculturation can be described as "a partly conscious and partly unconscious learning experience when the older generation invites, induces, and compels the younger generation to adopt traditional ways of thinking and behaving."Miraglia, Eric, Richard Law, and Peg Collins. 1999. "reproduction | Glossary." What is Culture?. Washington State University. Retrieved 2 July 2020. .
Although, in many ways enculturation duplicates the norms and traditions of previous generations, the degree of similarity between the cultures of each successive generation through enculturation may vary. This concept could be demonstrated by the tendency of each successive generation to follow cultural norms, such as the concept of right-of-way in transportation. These expectations are set forth and replicated by the prior generation. For example, there may be little if any empirical evidence supporting a choice of driving in one lane or another, yet with each new generation, the accepted norm of that individual's culture is reinforced and perpetuated.
Parents and educators prove to be two of the most influential enculturating forces of cultural reproduction.Gray, Ann, and Jim McGuigan, eds. 1993. Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader. London: Edward Arnold.
Diffusion Comparatively, diffusion is the dispersion of cultural norms and behaviours between otherwise unrelated groups or individuals. For example, the integration of Chinese food or French linguistics into American culture both represent this concept.
History of Bourdieu and reproduction theory The concept of cultural reproduction was first developed by French sociologist and cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu in the early 1970s. Initially, Bourdieu's work pertained to education in modern society, believing that the education system was used solely to 'reproduce' the culture of the dominant class in order for the elite to continue to hold and release power.
Bourdieu's theories recognizably build upon the conjectures of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Georges Canguilhem, Karl Marx, Gaston Bachelard, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Norbert Elias, among others. Beginning to study socialisation and how dominant culture and certain norms and traditions affected many social relations, Bourdieu's ideas were especially similar to those of Louis Althusser's notion of Ideological State Apparatuses, which had emerged around the same time. Bourdieu's sociological work was dominated by an analysis of the mechanisms of reproduction of social hierarchies. In opposition to Marxist analyses, Bourdieu criticised the primacy given to the economic factors, and stressed that the capacity of social actors to actively impose and engage their cultural productions and symbolic systems plays an essential role in the reproduction of social structures of domination. Playing an essential part in Bourdieu's sociological analysis is what he called symbolic violence: the capacity to ensure that the predictability of the social order is ignored—or mis-recognised as natural—and thus to ensure the legitimacy of social structures.
In regards to cultural reproduction, one of the main concepts of Bourdieu was introduced in Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction (1970), written with Jean-Claude Passeron, in which the writers primarily focus on the structural reproduction of disadvantages and inequalities that are caused by cultural reproduction.
According to Bourdieu, inequalities are recycled through the education system and other social institutions.Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, translated by R. Nice. Harvard University Press. Bourdieu believed that the prosperous and affluent societies of the West were becoming the cultural capital. High social class, familiarity with bourgeois culture, and educational credentials determined one's life chances. It was biased towards those of higher social class and aided in conserving social hierarchies. This system concealed and neglected individual talent and academic meritocracy. Along with Reproduction in Education, Culture and Society, Bourdieu demonstrated most of his known theories in his book The Inheritors (1964). Both books established him as a progenitor of "reproduction theory."Stones, Robs. 2006. Key Contemporary Thinkers. London: Macmillan.
Bourdieu also pioneered many procedural frameworks and terminologies, emphasising the role of practice and embodiment in social dynamics. Such concepts of Bourdieu's include:
cultural, social, and symbolic capital; habitus; field theory; and symbolic violence.
Education as an agent Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction is concerned with the link between original class membership and ultimate class membership, and how this link is mediated by the education system.Sullivan, Alice. 2002. "'Bourdieu and Education: How Useful is Bourdieu's Theory for Researchers?'" Netherlands' Journal of Social Sciences 38(2)144–66. .
Bourdieu theorizes that what is taught to younger generations is dependent on the varying degrees of social, economic, and cultural capital. Bourdieu suggests that cultural capital is developed through socialization within the child's home, particularly through the influence and involvement of parents. Such cultures have gained cultural capital and are considered the dominant group among the rest. However, in order to acquire cultural capital one must undergo indiscernible learning and these cultural norms must be used in the earliest days of life.Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, translated by Richard Nice, Harvard University Press (1984) Through cultural reproduction, only those members of the dominant culture can acquire knowledge in relation to the way it is taught from within this cultural system. Therefore, those who are not members of the dominant culture are at a disadvantage to receive cultural information, and therefore will remain at a disadvantage. Students who come from families with higher levels of education and high socioeconomic statuses may have advantages because they are often more familiar with the values and expectations of school and cultural mobility. Capitalist societies depend on a stratified social system, where the working class has an education suited for manual labour: leveling out such inequalities would break down the system. Therefore, schools in capitalist societies require a method of stratification, and often choose to do so in a way in which the dominant culture will not lose its hegemony. One method of maintaining this stratification is through cultural reproduction.
According to Alice Sullivan (2001), the theory of cultural reproduction entails three fundamental propositions:Sullivan, Alice. 2001. "'Cultural Capital and Educational Attainment'." Sociology 35(4):839–912. . parental cultural capital is inherited by children; children's cultural capital is converted into educational credentials; and educational credentials are a major mechanism of social reproduction in advanced capitalist societies. There is no clear consensus as to the exact role of education within cultural reproduction; and further to what degree, if any, this system either encourages or discourages topics such as social stratification, resource inequality, and discrepancies in access to opportunities. It is believed, however, that the primary means in which education determines an individual's social status, class, values, and hierarchy, is through the distribution of cultural capital. This notion of cultural capital accumulation, and the degree to which an individual attains cultural capital, determines the individual's access to resources and opportunities.Lynch, Kathleen. 1990. "Reproduction: The Role of Cultural Factors and Educational Mediators." British Journal of Sociology of Education 11(1):3–20.
There are, however several competing ideologies and explanations that have been significantly discussed.
Hidden curriculum