Video 1: Jack, Anthony. [TEDx Talks]. (2019 June 13). On Diversity: Access Ain't Inclusion [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7w2Gv7ueOc&t=186s

When we think about the ubiquity of higher education choices that students have across the country, it is important to remember, as Anthony Jack states in his Ted Talk, that "Access ain't inclusion." If students are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend college, it is often not a given that they will stay there. The hurdles to attending college or university are often insurmountable and can be encapsulated in Bourdieu's theory of "cultural capital." Anthony Jack alludes to this concept when he speaks about how colleges get their diverse students of color from boarding schools, these "privileged poor." He goes on to say that colleges like these students because "they have cultural capital. Those taken-for-granted ways of being that are valued in mainstream institutions"(Jack, 2019; 3:04). 

Many students in our educational system do not have ready access to cultural capital, yet Bourdieu posits that the more successful students possess this capital. Bourdieu leans into this failure of the educational system by saying, "By doing away with giving explicitly to everyone what it implicitly demands of everyone, the educational system demands of everyone alike that they have what it does not give. This consists mainly of linguistic and cultural competence and that relationship of familiarity with culture which can only be produced by family upbringing when it transmits the dominant culture"(Bourdieu, 1977; 101). The resources contained in societal relations are those which inform students in their educational journey. Lin (2017) states that the notion of social capital has a very simple and clear meaning-investing in social relationships with expected benefits." Indeed, research indicates that the educational achievements of individuals are related to various forms of capital that an individual possesses (or does not possess): social, economic, and cultural capital (Coleman, 1988; 1982; Doolan, 2009; Eng, 2009; Sullivan, 2001). 

Within Professor Jack's Ted Talk, one can see that the economically disadvantaged students not lucky enough to attend the boarding schools he mentions are the "doubly disadvantaged" because they attend the regular public schools in the area and also do not have access to the cultural capital of their more advantaged peers. Professor Jack discusses the "hidden curriculum," which is the unwritten rules and unset expectations of the system(Jack, 2019; 3:33). In particular, he tells an anecdote about how office hours are not something that students without cultural capital understand. As a result, these students do not attend these moments where they can discuss challenges or get clarification. Students with cultural capital are more apt to participate in an advantageous relationship with faculty. Connecting with faculty is even helpful for one's GPA. Recent research shows that each visit to office hours corresponds to a one to 5 percent bump in your final grade for that course(Jack, 2019; 4:16). 

When advocating for a diverse student population, it is important to understand that the system "presupposes the possession of cultural capital, which only a minority of students in fact possess. There is a great deal of inefficiency in 'pedagogic transmission'. This is because students simply do not understand what their teachers are trying to get across (Sullivan, 2001b; 894). 

Understanding that there are deficits in a wide range of cultural capital is the first step to making higher education a possibility for all students who would like to attend. What can the educational community do to build bridges from high school to higher education to make the system truly ubiquitous for all?

Reference

Bourdieu, P. (2018). Cultural reproduction and social reproduction. In Routledge eBooks (pp. 71–112). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351018142-3

Coleman, J. W. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95–S120. https://doi.org/10.1086/228943

Doolan, K. (2009). ‘My dad studied here too’: social inequalities and educational (dis)advantage in a Croatian higher education setting. http://idiprints.knjiznica.idi.hr/315/

Eng, S. (2009). Social capital and academic achievements among children in Cambodia: A close look at family. Doctoral thesis. Texas: Texas Tech University. 

Lin, N. (2017). Building a network theory of social capital. In Routledge eBooks (pp. 3–28). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315129457-1

Sullivan, A. (2001b). Cultural capital and educational attainment. Sociology, 35(4), 893–912. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038501035004006