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The Sociological Imagination

Gouse Ali

ID: 1010100365

Concept Connection (477)

Getting admitted to the University of Toronto as an undergraduate student was the most

momentous event of my life. Being a second-generation immigrant, it was my main goal to leave

no stone unturned to achieve higher education from a prestigious institution in order to live up to

the expectations of my parents, who have spent their entire lives working tirelessly to ensure I

get a secure and successful future. This situation epitomizes the influence of socioeconomic

status particularly cultural capital on educational attainment, along with the role of family acting

as agents of socialization. Cultural capital refers to the social assets that can be effectively

converted to educational credentials and are incorporated in the higher social classes through

transmission by the dominant culture (Sullivan 2001). These include skills, cultural competence,

social confidence, language, worldviews, etc. derived from embodied, objectified, and

institutionalized forms (Huang 2019). Culture capital can be acquired through socialization

which is the process of learning of norms, behaviors, expectations, values, and roles through

interaction (Schneider 2010). Belonging to an upper middle class family, I had access to more

resources such as books, scholarly articles, journals, newspapers, documentaries, and movies that

helped me to develop not only my world knowledge but also my language and eloquence,
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communication, critical thinking, and rhetorical effectiveness and analysis skills. Through this

extensive exposure, I learned how to read different genres used by a discourse and adapt to new

situational settings as well as to categorize information thus developing my cognitive abilities.

Since childhood, the value of education has been stressed by my family who have always been

directly involved in my education and have been pushing, encouraging, supporting, teaching,

guiding, and helping me to achieve top grades. In elementary school, my grandfather used to

teach me by himself with the objective of securing first position in class. He used to stand by the

gates of the school during recess on the days of a test to ask about my performance. Moreover,

my parents have also always had high expectations for me and have always motivated me to

work harder. My siblings and cousins are all admitted in prestigious universities, including Ivy

League schools. Thus, these shared norms, responsibilities, and values of my family learned

through socialization created my habitus of learning.

In addition to acquiring culture capital, the high SES of my family meant greater educational

investment through tutoring, extra classes, and online courses. This investment as explained by

the human capital theory along with cultural capital which is transferable to economic capital

(Huang 2019). However, in contrast, a personal friend could not get into college because she

could not afford to despite having the merit. Thus, my SES placed me at a social advantage

serving as a mechanism of social reproduction in capitalist society and legitimating social

inequality (Sullivan 2001). In conclusion, the resultant high educational achievement in the prior

stages of schooling flowed into the continuous process of educational attainment (Li and Qiu

2018).

Applied Research (381)

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de Moll, et al. (2023) explain the association of habitus with cultural capital and social class

accumulated through socialization processes, its impact on educational success, and the ultimate

contribution to social inequalities (p. 191). Habitus differs across social classes. Individuals from

the upper class possess a cultural capital and habitus that facilitate learning and are more in line

with the behavioral expectations, linguistic structure, curricula, and standards of the school than

the working class (de Moll et al. 2023). These are imparted by parents through socialization and

internalization of resources that comprise the culture capital. Individuals educational

achievement is contingent upon the role of habitus in motivating learning and forming ambitions

(de Moll et al. 2023). Habitus is constructed in upper classes by parenting characteristics of

communication, orchestrated learning activities, and active school involvement that prompts

individuals to perform better (de Moll et al. 2023). For instance, my habitus manufactured from

experiences and socialization served as a major motivating factor for me to work hard and get

high grades. It was ingrained in my thinking that I have to be at the top of my class, for which I

often used to burn the midnight oil. In contrast, my class fellows with parents of more

laissez-faire disposition only studied hard enough to get passing grades. Similarly, Taylor et al.

(2004) demonstrate that parents shape a child’s behavioral skills and attitudes through

socialization to ensure their educational success (p. 163). Parents' establishment of home literacy

environments, parental help in homework, school intervention, educational involvement,

expectations from children, style of communication, support, school transitional practices, and

positive behaviors significantly influence children’s educational outcomes (Taylor et al. 2004).

This is consistent with my personal experiences, as the expectations of my parents for

achievement have shaped my learning behaviors and outcomes throughout my life. Fear of

disappointing them was always a driving force behind my hard work. This demonstrates that
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educational success depends upon a variety of factors including socioeconomic status SES,

culture capital, habitus, and role of family as agents of socialization. These factors are

interrelated and each influences the educational achievement as well as educational attainment in

their own specific manner. In sum, family structure, background, SES, social class, and culture

capital are strong predictors of an individual’s habitus and thus, in turn the learning and

educational success which can effectively be translated into economic capital, inequality,

maintenance of the status quo, and social reproduction.

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References

DiMaggio, Paul. 1982. “Cultural Capital and School Success: The Impact of Status Culture

Participation on the Grades of U.S. High School Students.” American Psychological

Review, 47(2):189-201. https://doi.org/10.2307/2094962

de Moll, Frederick, Alyssa Laureen Grecu, and Andreas Hadjar. 2023. “Students' Academic

Habitus and Its Relation to Family Capital: A Latent Class Approach to Inequalities

among Secondary School Students.” Sociological Inquiry, 94(1):190-220.

https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12578

Huang, Xiaowei. 2019. “Understanding Bourdieu - Cultural Capital and Habitus.” Review of

European Studies, 11(3):45-49. https://doi.org/10.5539/res.v11n3p45

Li, Zhonglu and Zeqi Qiu. 2018. “How does family background affect children’s educational

achievement? Evidence from Contemporary China.” The Journal of Chinese Sociology,

5(13):1-21.

https://journalofchinesesociology.springeropen.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s40711-018-008

3-8.pdf

Sullivan, Alice. 2001. “Cultural Capital and Educational Attainment.” Sociology, 35(4):893-912.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42856347

Schneider, Barbara, Venessa Keesler, and Larissa Morlock. 2010. “The Effects of Family on

Children’s Learning and Socialisation.” Pp. 251-284 in The Nature of Learning: Using

Research to Inspire Practice, edited by H. Dumont, D. Istance, and F. Benavides. OECD

Publishing.

Taylor, Lorraine C., Jennifer D. Clayton, and Stephanie J. Rowley. 2004. “Academic
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Socialization: Understanding Parental Influences on Children’s School-Related

Development in the Early Years.” Review of General Psychology, 8(3):163-178.

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/108158/Academic%20Socializat

ion.pdf?sequence=1