Social and Cultural Capital in an Urban Latino School Community

Abstract

The concepts of social and cultural capital explain how inequality is reproduced in schools. High-status cultural practices and knowledge, and access to these through elite social networks, become the indications through which success is recognized and rewarded. However, it is in the dynamics of negotiating social and cultural capital that processes of social reproduction can potentially be upset and derailed. This study analyzes those dynamics of negotiation in a low-income, Spanish speaking, urban school community. This process of reproduction can be derailed in ways that benefit children who are nonelite.