Trends in the Relative Influence of Education and Income on Highbrow Taste, 1982–2012

Although numerous studies have confirmed the separate effects of economic and cultural capital on arts participation, research focusing on the cumulative and interactive effects of economic and cultural capital through the creation of taste publics is limited. Using data from the United States (Survey of Public Participation in the Arts [1982–2012]), this research integrates economic and cultural capital—measured as income and education—into the analysis of taste, creates taste publics, and examines their association with highbrow arts participation over time. We find that the effects of economic and cultural capital on highbrow arts participation decreased between 1982 and 2012, and American publics seem to have converged across both types of capital. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Mediating production and consumption: cultural capital and 'cultural workers'

This paper examines recent debates about the role of what Bourdieu termed cultural intermediaries in the formation and reproduction of the relations of cultural capital. Workers in the cultural or creative industries were given a central place in Bourdieu's schema in the creation of hierarchies of value in the production and consumption of symbolic goods. Subsequent writers about the apparent emergence of a creative economy (Lash and Urry 1994; Featherstone 1991) have given workers involved in the production and distribution of cultural goods a pivotal place in the development of late or post-modernity. More recent work (Negus 2002; Nixon and du Gay 2002) has criticized the validity and coherence of the term as it has come to be understood and called for more rigour in its definition and use. This paper adds to this debate by considering the book trade as a space in which the gap between production and consumption of cultural goods is mediated. It suggests that cultural intermediaries, as cultural workers, are engaged in the reproduction of the cultural aspects of social class by 'shoring up' their insecure position in the relations of cultural capital, rather than simply being the taste leaders of a reflexive modernity.     

Cultural intermediaries and the circuit of culture: The Digital Ambassadors project in Johannesburg,South Africa

The question raised by Cheney and Christensen (2001) as to “what a non-Western, non-managerial and non-rationalist form of public relations will look like” (p.182), together with the call made by Gregory (2014) for public relations practitioners (PRPs) to be active social change agents, motivated this paper. The aim of this research is to follow a culture-centred approach and apply the circuit of culture (Curtin & Gaither, 2005) to investigate the meanings that young people (aged 18 to 34), as cultural intermediaries, ascribe to their participation in a digital empowerment project implemented by the City of Johannesburg, South Africa. This research forms part of a larger, ongoing multi-disciplinary research project.The research highlights the complexity of projects of this nature, the wide variety of stakeholders involved, the significance of structure, the importance of training of cultural intermediaries, and the benefits such intermediaries gain from their involvement. A key finding is that self-development and financial benefit contribute significantly to the success of cultural intermediaries. This paper contributes to the field of public relations by providing an analysis of cultural intermediaries’ contribution to the circuit of culture as influenced not only by production and consumption but also by identity and regulation as seen in the way they represented the meaning created during their experience.     

Seeing culture through the eye of the beholder: four methods in pursuit of taste

When it comes to making aesthetic decisions, people commonly account for their taste with intuition. A cultural good, symbol, or object is simply right and respondents “know it when they see it.” This article investigates the cultural meanings professional tastemakers see as they make such deliberations, while also illustrating the problems sociologists have in seeing culture. Using the case of fashion model casting and scouting, I present four methods to trace how cultural producers recognize and value models’ looks in the global fashion market, demonstrating how each method results in a different emphasis on how culture is used to acquire and deploy aesthetic sense. First, interviews capture justifications of aesthetic decisions, as well as general processes about day-to-day work routines, which are next tested with network analysis, the second method, which emphasizes structural arrangements in taste decisions. The third method, ethnography, discovers taste as a situated form of knowledge production and emphasizes culture in interaction. The fourth and related method, observant participation, sees taste as phenomenological as culture becomes embodied and tacit consciousness. Each of these methods is an optical device that renders a particular and complimentary account of taste and affords researchers a certain way to see how culture works.     

Cultural Intermediaries and the Media

This article provides an introduction to, and makes a case for, cultural intermediaries as an entry point for the study of media and cultural production. We offer a strategic parsing of the conceptual foundations provided by Bourdieu with regard to cultural intermediaries and the media, loosely organized in terms of where they are located (working in media); the means of accomplishing their role (working with media); and their economic role in promoting consumption (the work of mediation). We then follow the translation of the concept from Bourdieu to a cultural economy approach that is concerned with the material practices involved in the formation of value. A review and comparison of substantive findings from a range of cultural economic case studies of cultural intermediary occupations serves as an introduction to a three-fold approach that might guide future studies of occupations in cultural industries, in terms of: historicizing occupations, material practices, and assessments of impact. Finally, we conclude with a claim for the utility of ‘cultural intermediaries’ as a way to think about cultural production, and highlight areas in which work remains to be done.     

Street art in non-capital urban centres: between exploiting commercial appeal and expressing social concerns

ABSTRACT

How do local cultural agents in particular places adopt new policies towards street art as having commercial and political value? The present article takes up this question through a discussion of street art festivals and their role within urban culture and cultural policies in two large Russian cities. It considers the activities of cultural intermediaries promoting street art vis-à-vis the existing constellation of over-centralized politics, creative industries, urban development and precarious labour. Drawing on fieldwork in these cities and conducting critical sociological analysis of the street art curating, I show how the appropriation of street art by cultural intermediaries is subtly changing its ecology and values and argue that this change contributes to the range of ambivalences of neoliberal cultural politics. The article also sheds light on cultural policy and practice in Russia at a juncture characterised by the impact of globalization, on the one hand, and the country's isolationist and conservative politics, on the other.     

The State of Research in Latino Academic Attainment

In this essay, I present an interdisciplinary examination of the state of research in Latino education, addressing not only the cultural forces influencing Latinos’ educational attainment, but also the structural conditions faced by them—as a racialized minority group—throughout their schooling and that have a cumulative effect on their academic attainment. Overall, I suggest that by engaging in a critical review of the literature on Latinos’ educational attainment, the reader will acknowledge that the racially driven hierarchical structural arrangements are highly responsible for the patterns observed.     

The situations of culture: humor and the limits of measurability

This article develops a theory of humor and uses it to assess the attempt to measure meaning-structures in cultural sociology. To understand how humor operates, researchers need to attend to two layers of cultural competencies: general typifications and situation-specific know-how. These cultural competencies are then invoked in ways that define humor as a specific form of experiential frame—the bi-sociation of meaning, its condensation, and resonance with experienced tensions in the social world. I show the usefulness of this theorization through the empirical case of AIDS humor in Malawi, a small country in South-East Africa. Using conversational diaries, everyday interactions, and newspaper cartoons, I argue both that such humor is widespread and that it reveals important facets of life in a country ravaged by the pandemic—what it means for the shadow of AIDS to be ever-present. Through this case, I then turn back to the question of measurement, arguing that although measuring tools may be able to identify large-scale semantic shifts, they necessarily miss forms of interaction such as humor, that are based on allusion, condensation, and what is left unsaid.     

The Influence of Cultural Capital on How AmeriCorps Members Interpret Their Service

How do volunteers interpret what their service means to them? Is it based on the values the program instills, or on their experiences before volunteering? To answer these questions, I investigate service interpretation in the AmeriCorps program, a US-based social service agency. I conduct 22 in-depth interviews with AmeriCorps members to highlight how they use their cultural capital—rooted in their raised-class background—to interact differently with those they serve and to interpret different benefits of AmeriCorps. I find members from lower-income backgrounds use their past as a form of cultural capital to connect with their service population. On the other hand, members from more privileged backgrounds see the program as beneficial in the context of future work, yet have more difficulty connecting with those they serve. I conclude that the cultural capital learned from different social classes fosters different service interpretations for AmeriCorps members.     

Behind the Myth of the Matriarch and the Flagbearer: How Korean and Chinese American Sons and Daughters Negotiate Gender,Family, and Emotions

While more studies are exploring the ways in which gender structures the family experiences of American‐born children of immigrants, there is less attention to how gender shapes later views on ethnicity and culture. Based on interviews with Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese Americans in the New York–New Jersey metropolitan area, this article examines the different ways second‐generation children learn, interpret, and pass on the cultural values and family traditions in their adulthood. Because their family roles center on their roles as leaders and carriers of the family name through male heirs, sons—especially oldest sons—can fulfill their filial obligations through relatively orthodox and nonengaging cultural practices that although restrictive, do not threaten their personal goals and privileged status. However, daughters must negotiate more emotionally burdensome expectations and responsibilities by preserving family honor, acting as family caretakers, and juggling multiple responsibilities; thus, they tend to re‐create more subtle, self‐empowering, and emotionally engaging ways of interpreting and preserving their parents’ expectations on family culture. I argue that the gendered ways daughters and sons are taught to practice cultural values and protect family honor has significant bearing on their later views on ethnicity and culture but in complex ways that transcend the generational divide.     

Rise of the Department Store and the Aestheticization of Everyday Life in Early 20th Century Japan

Abstract:  This paper focuses on the ways in which the department store has become a key site for the constitution of Japanese modernity through the introduction of images and goods taken from the West, along with the emphasis on "Western design" and "Western taste". These new consumer spaces have become aestheticized in various ways so that we can speak of an "aestheticization" of everyday life. Yet this was also a modernizing learning process for Japanese consumers, hence a key problem was how these new experiences were to be classified and ordered into a relatively stable habitus. The rise of the department store has had an important mediating function here. Department stores not only provided new goods along with interpretations of how to use them, but also acted as theatres, as rehearsal spaces, with front and back stage areas where one can watch the performance, try out for oneself new roles. This is especially the case for women in the city, who were able to explore a new identity space with a new set of competence experiences and pleasures. In this process, the department store also provided a form of women's public sphere where they could enjoy shopping, entertainment and learning opportunities. Department stores encouraged not only a sense of luxury and theatrical settings, but also help to teach women how to assemble new tastes and styles into their lifestyle. In addition, it should be emphasized that in the Japanese case, department stores also played an important role not just as a new cultural initiative on the part of the businessmen and cultural intermediaries who invented consumer culture, but also as a political initiative on the part of the government who sought to link them to the reform of everyday life and the production of good Japanese citizens.     

Contested Ground: Network Governance in Australia's Migration Industry

This article challenges current understandings of the Australian migration industry's position in a network governance framework by shedding light on Registered Migration Agents’ (RMA) lived experiences of their profession. Using qualitative interview data collected from ten migration intermediaries across Australia, this article examines their experiences of their role in relation to the state and industry bodies. Placing migration intermediaries at the meso‐level of analysis, between macro‐level forces of the state and micro‐level agency of their clients, I argue primarily that the migration industry of Australia is a “contested ground” where intermediaries are embedded within complex negotiations with the state and legal frameworks, whilst also negotiating their legitimacy in a stigmatised profession. The findings of this study reveal migration intermediaries’ experiences of network governance as pivotal stakeholders, operating within a space characterized by complex configurations of autonomy and bureaucratic control.     

Funders as principals

This article examines the tensions that surfaced for three nonprofit funding intermediaries—tensions between their historic practices and the new practices required to use performance measurement to ensure greater accountability and results among their grantees—and analyzes these tensions in light of literature on philanthropic and accountability relationships. From this analysis, the article makes three points. First, philanthropic relationships are not equivalent to accountability relationships. Second, because of these differences funders that adopt performance measurement may encounter tensions as these new practices challenge the importance of other philanthropic concerns. Third, without a systematic way to attend to these concerns when adopting performance measurement, funders face an impoverished choice: reward measurable results or fall back on supporting good intentions.     

Social Class and Habitus at the End of College: Cultural Similarity and Difference among Graduating Seniors

ABSTRACT

Existing research offers a range of perspectives on the impact of the college experience on culture. While some scholars claim that higher education leads to cultural convergence or homogenization among students, others emphasize the durability of class-based cultural differences during college. This article seeks to understand the degree to which students from across class backgrounds leave college with a similar habitus. Drawing from interviews with 62 graduating seniors from three distinct class backgrounds, I examine cultural similarities and differences at two layers of habitus as students look toward life after college. Findings demonstrate that while students’ specific aspirations for graduate study and careers are similar, their general cultural schemas—evidenced by students’ perceptions of what constitutes success and failure after graduation—and sense of self diverge along class lines. In other words, these interviews provide evidence that college seniors across class backgrounds are comparable in their secondary habitus but differ at the level of their primary habitus. These findings have implications for the way we conceive of social mobility through higher education as well as our understanding of multiple layers of habitus.     

Omnivorousness as the bridging of cultural holes: A measurement strategy

Recent research and theory at the intersection of cultural sociology and network analysis have converged around the notion of cultural holes: patterns of cultural choice that position the person as a bridge not between other persons but between cultural worlds. This is an approach that promises to open up new vistas in our conceptualization of the relationship between social position and cultural taste, but that so far lacks operational grounding. In this article, I draw on Breiger’s (1974) formalization of the idea of the duality of persons and groups along with classical formalizations of brokerage for sociometric networks (Burt 1992) to suggest that the “cultural ego network” of a typical survey respondent can be reconstructed from patterns of audience overlap among the cultural items that are chosen by each respondent. This leads to a formalization of the notion of omnivorousness as relatively low levels of clustering in the cultural network: namely, omnivorousness as cultural network efficiency. I show how this metric overcomes the difficulties that have plagued previous attempts to produce ordinal indicators of omnivorousness from simple counts of the number of cultural choices, while providing novel substantive (and sometime counter-intuitive) insights into the relationship between socio-demographic status markers and patterns of cultural choice in the contemporary United States.     

Class, Culture, and Participation in the Collegiate Extra-Curriculum

With larger percentages of high school students entering higher education, it becomes increasingly important to look at how processes occurring on college campuses contribute to social stratification. Using in‐depth interviews with 61 students, I ask: How does social class structure students’ participation in the collegiate extra‐curriculum? I argue that the collegiate extra‐curriculum is an important site for stratification because it is there that students gain access to social and cultural resources valued by the privileged classes. I find that upper‐middle‐class students arrive on campus with cultural resources that motivate their participation and social resources that facilitate their involvement. Among working‐class students, limited financial factors constrain their involvement, while social and cultural resources further curtail their interest in such activities. These findings contribute to theories of social and cultural reproduction by showing that those who have more valued social and cultural resources at the outset are in a better position to gain additional such resources throughout their college careers. Moreover, these analyses show that symbolic and cultural hierarchies are sustained by the interdependent relationship between social and cultural capital.     

Feminized cultural capital at work in the moral economy: Home credit and working-class women

One of the defining features of the home credit sector is the role played by its agents—workers who act as intermediaries between lending companies and borrowers to facilitate lending and collect repayments. There is a prevailing and pervasive narrative in the sector that women make superior agents, largely based on the belief that female agents can manage relationships with borrowers more successfully than their male counterparts. This article analyzes data from 349,078 home credit accounts (loans), as well as 71 interviews with home credit agents and lending company managers, to evaluate both the myths and realities of women's roles in home credit. The data is also used to explore the opportunities for—and potential constraints on—women's career progression in home credit work, based on an understanding of the moral economy in which they operate. By exploring the moral economy of low-income communities, the article highlights the role of working-class women's cultural capital within the labor market. Despite women forming the majority of the agent workforce in home credit, women's capital is undervalued in comparison with their male counterparts' capital. The analysis within this article allows a greater understanding of the highly classed and gendered nature of the moral economy of low-income communities and the exchange value of women's capital within the labor market.     

Socrates,Skinner, and Aristotle: Three Ways of Thinking About Culture in Action1

The cultural turn has been one of the major shifts in sociology over the last two decades. Though nearly everyone now agrees that culture matters, how it matters is not terribly clear. What, exactly, is culture supposed to do? In this essay, I articulate two ideal‐typical—though often implicit—ways most sociologists have thought about culture’s role in action. Although no single sociologist or piece of research fully embodies either ideal type, I believe they are real tendencies in the field that have real consequences for how research is designed, undertaken, and understood. After outlining these approaches, I subject them to an engagement with cognitive science. This is not out a desire for reductionism but, as I will show, because a crucial difference between these perspectives is their implicit model of how human beings perceive, acquire, store, retrieve, and act on the symbolic information that surrounds them every day. This exercise will lead to the conclusion that both perspectives are incomplete and will point toward a synthetic approach that can shed new light on how culture matters for action.