Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth

TLDR

CRT reframes Communities of Color not as deficient but as possessing diverse cultural knowledge, skills, and networks that are often overlooked. The article seeks to reconceptualize cultural capital through CRT, urging schools to recognize and build on the strengths of Communities of Color to advance social and racial justice. It identifies six forms of capital—aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial, and resistant—drawn from Students of Color’s home and community knowledge, and calls for schools to acknowledge and develop these assets.

Abstract

This article conceptualizes community cultural wealth as a critical race theory (CRT) challenge to traditional interpretations of cultural capital. CRT shifts the research lens away from a deficit view of Communities of Color as places full of cultural poverty disadvantages, and instead focuses on and learns from the array of cultural knowledge, skills, abilities and contacts possessed by socially marginalized groups that often go unrecognized and unacknowledged. Various forms of capital nurtured through cultural wealth include aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial and resistant capital. These forms of capital draw on the knowledges Students of Color bring with them from their homes and communities into the classroom. This CRT approach to education involves a commitment to develop schools that acknowledge the multiple strengths of Communities of Color in order to serve a larger purpose of struggle toward social and racial justice.