Contents
Presenters
Paul Sutton Reeves – Graduate Teaching Assistant, Research student – Media, Culture and Creative Industries
Poster
Embracing diverse experience is key to maintaining world-leading education, fostering social mobility, and equipping students to thrive. Cultural capital – often an unacknowledged barrier – can impact student success and potential. This poster seeks to guide personal tutors through identifying and addressing disparities in cultural capital among the student population.
The poster explores the meaning of cultural capital. The term originated with Bourdieu (1984) who used it to signify the knowledge, skills, behaviours, attitudes and cultural experiences that students from privileged backgrounds possess, enabling them to succeed in education, and which students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds often lack.
While widening participation initiatives have brought many benefits to the HE landscape, they have led also to an increase in students lacking aspects of cultural capital (Rees, 2024). An awareness of the effects this may have on educational attainment and how the issue might be addressed in HE empowers personal tutors to provide more individually-tailored support to their tutees (Tramonte and Willms, 2010).
Understanding the challenges students face when lacking aspects of cultural capital is vital in the modern HE context (Davies and Rizk, 2018). Personal tutors are uniquely placed to act as catalysts for change in this regard and the poster explores the role they can play. This involves having an up-to-date knowledge of the support services students can be referred to, making themselves available and approachable, and providing guidance on study strategies. Some useful pointers for action are given. These include how to identify the factors that may place a tutee at risk of withdrawal, underachieving or failing, and practical advice for both new and experienced personal tutors.
The poster will be of interest to personal tutors and educators who wish to enhance their inclusive practice and learn more about cultural capital. This has relevance to educators and those in support services across City St. George’s where 50% of home students come from relatively deprived neighbourhoods and 63.9% are commuter students (City, University of London, Access and participation plan 2025-26 to 2029-30, Gaddis, 2013).
References
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Translated by R. Nice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Davies, S. and Rizk, J. (2018) ‘The three generations of cultural capital research: A narrative review’, Review of Educational Research, 88(3), pp. 331–365. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/45217766 (Accessed: 27 February 2025).
Gaddis, S.M. (2013) ‘The influence of habitus in the relationship between cultural capital and academic achievement’, Social Science Research, 42(1), pp. 1–13. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.08.002 (Accessed: 25 February 2025).
Rees, J. (2024) ‘Ofsted’s definition of “cultural capital”: A comprehensive guide’, National College. Available at: https://nationalcollege.com/news/ofsted-cultural-capital-guide (Accessed: 27 February 2025).
Tramonte, L. and Willms, J.D. (2010) ‘Cultural capital and its effects on education outcomes’, Economics of Education Review, 29(2), pp. 200–213.
