Cultural Capital

In Ofsted’s inspection framework, it states that leaders need to take on or construct a curriculum that is ambitious and designed to give all learners the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Ofsted have defined cultural capital as, “...the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.”

For us at Firfield, this means the knowledge children need to be able to think for themselves, to understand the situation within which they live, to recognise systems within society, to ask questions and know how to find answers.

Initially, the phrase has caused some controversy, especially regarding how we define what is essential knowledge. However, this term has been around long before Ofsted used it. It was French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu wrote about the concept of a person possessing “capital”. Bourdieu (1973, 1986) explores the theory of cultural capital and highlights the link between an individual’s background and their access to knowledge. Bourdieu (1973) observed that cultural capital is often linked to social class and as a result reinforces social divisions, hierarchies of power and inequality within society. As with knowledge, those with cultural capital can gain more as they move through society with much more power than those who do not have it.

Therefore, developing cultural capital at Firfield exposes children to experiences that they may otherwise not have had: our well-defined knowledge-rich curriculum does this. It is important that teachers know that cultural capital is not just an ‘add-on’ that can be ‘done’ through trips or through musical instruments. At Firfield, we have embedded cultural capital into the fabric of our curriculum.