Can Multicultural Education Change What Counts as Cultural Capital?

Abstract

In this article I answer the question: Can multicultural education redefine or transform cultural capital? After briefly explaining the concept of cultural capital and justifying its application in an analysis of multiculturalism, I identify ways in which multicultural education may transform cultural capital. In the remainder of the article, I examine three principal dynamics that constrain the potential for multiculturalism to transform cultural capital: school-based cultural capital is not independent of other kinds of capital (2) classes presently favored in the distribution of cultural capital may adopt strategies that blunt the tendencies of multiculturalism to redefine cultural capital, and (3) multiculturalism is inherently contradictory with respect to the redefinition of cultural capital. I conclude that despite significant successes of multiculturalism in challenging prevailing cultural capital, defenders of existing cultural capital have succeeded in blunting and circumscribing the extent to which that capital has been transformed. Moreover, I conclude that multiculturalism may well be less likely to transform cultural capital and more likely to undermine the conditions for its formation.