This presentation outlines Social Reproduction Theory, which asserts that schools reproduce the social inequities, especially in terms of socioeconomic class and race, that exist in the larger society. In addition, it addresses the concepts of social and cultural capital arguing that culture and education are central in the affirmation of differences between social classes and in the reproduction of those differences.

1. SOCIAL
REPRODUCTION
THEORY, and
CULTURAL & SOCIAL
CAPITAL
Dr.Warren J. Blumenfeld
warrenblumenfeld@gmail.com

2. SOCIAL
REPRODUCTION
THEORY

3. Early Exponents
Samuel Bowles Herbert Gintis

4. SOCIAL REPRODUCTION
THEORY
The theory that schools
reproduce the social inequities,
especially in terms of
socioeconomic class and race,
that exist in the larger society.

5. SOCIAL REPRODUCTIONTHEORY:
School Practices
A.Tracking
B. Ability Grouping
C.Teacher Expectations
D. Counseling Methods
E. Unequal Funding
Expenditures

6. A.TRACKING
A practice found primarily in
middle and high schools, divides
students into separate and often
distinct curricula “tracks.”

7. “Schools…have a habit of focusing on a
select group of students to be groomed
for college. Separating students into
vocational or college prep classes may be
an obvious way to narrow the focus of
education, but it also takes away from a
student’s self-determination. Not only is
it detrimental to the student who is told
he [or she] is not ‘college material,’ it can
also hurt the student who is told that
being a mechanic or working with wood
is beneath him [or her].”
Jamie Timmons, Education Student (2002)

8. “STEREOTYPE VULNERABILITY”
When students of color fear conforming
to the myth of intellectual inferiority.
They, therefore, decrease their academic
efforts in an attempt to protect
themselves psychologically from the
potentially devastating prospects of
trying hard with poor results.
Claude Steele, Professor of Psychology
Stanford University

9. B. ABILITY GROUPING
Like tracking, ability grouping places
students into different classes or
groups within a given class based on
their abilities.The student’s abilities
are determined by a combination of
teacher assessment and standardized
testing.

10. “Often, the family income of
students parallels the levels of ability
grouping and tracking.That is, the
higher the family income of the
students, the more likely it is that
they will be in the higher ability
groups or a college-preparatory
curriculum. Conversely, the lower the
family income of the students, the
more likely it is that they will be in
the lower ability groups or the
vocational curriculum.”
Joel Spring (2002, p. 17)

11. C.TEACHER EXPECTATIONS
Teachers and other school officials
often expect students to act and
respond in certain stereotypical
ways, often dependent on the
students’ socioeconomic and ethnic
or racial backgrounds—the “self-
fulfilling prophesy.”

12. Charles & Massey (2003)
Survey of 3,924 College Students
“[B]lack people are rated most
negatively on traits that are consistent
with American racial ideology. White,
Latino, and Asian students are all likely
to perceive blacks as violence-prone and
poor.They also rate black people more
negatively than themselves in traits like
lazy, unintelligent, and preferring
welfare dependence.”

13. School failure of students of color
can be, at least partially, explained
by looking at clashes between the
students’ cultural background and
the dominant culture reflected in
the classroom.
McDermott (1997)

14. Teacher’s expectations,
prejudices, and biases have
influenced their special
education referral decisions of
students of color.
Harry (1992)

15. Percent of White Teachers
1988: 90%
1995: 87%
2000: 90%
2012: 82%
2018: 80%
• U.S.: 51% Students of Color
• Significant Number of All Schools Have
NOTeachers of Color

16. D. COUNSELING METHODS
Counseling methods, by teachers
as well as guidance counselors,
very often depends on the
socioeconomic and/or ethnic or
racial background of the students
and their parents.

17. E. UNEQUAL EXPENDITURES
This occurs when school districts with
higher rates of taxable wealth have
greater educational resources and
spend more on students than districts
with lower rates of taxable wealth
resulting in glaring inequities in
spending between school districts.

18. Karen B. McLean Dade
Additional School
Practices that
Contribute to Social
Reproduction of
Societal Inequities in
Schools

19. 1. CULTURALLY BIASED
CURRICULUM
The curriculum often includes perspectives
from mainly the dominant culture
(monocultural curriculum) and does not
fully incorporate perspectives from outside
the mainstream.The knowledge presented
has been constructed and reproduced
within dominant discourses.

20. 2. CULTURALLY BIASED
INSTRUCTION
Instructional pedagogies often reflect mainly
dominant perspectives and discourses, which
lack in diverse ways of leaning, meaning
making, and knowledge construction. Many
schools and individual teachers do hot have
experience and understanding in “culturally
relevant pedagogies”
Gloria Ladson-Billings

21. 3. CULTURALLY BIASED
ASSESSMENTS
Many student assessment tools do not
understand or address the multiple cultural
and learning styles of students, often
disadvantaging those outside of dominant
cultural identities.

22. 4. HIGHER SUSPENTION &
DETENTION RATES &
PENALTIES
Often when manifesting similar behaviors,
students of color and students of working
class and poor backgrounds often receive
harsher punishments and are suspended
from school at higher rates than are white
and higher income students.

23. 5. RACIAL EPITHETS, PHYSICAL
ATTACKS, & STEREOTYPING
Coming from the society at large, students
of color are at higher risk for being the
targets of racial epithets, physical attacks,
and stereotyping not only from other
students, but often from teachers, staff,
and administrators within schools.

24. 6. LACK OF ANTI-OPPRESSION
SCHOOL POLICIES
Though some schools have expressly
written policies, which outline
strategies to reduce or eliminate the
major forms of bias and oppression
found within the larger society, many
schools have no such policies in place.

25. 7. BIASED TEACHER HIRING
PRACTICES
Though not expressed, many schools have
hidden biased teacher, staff, and
administration hiring practices, thereby
seriously continuing the under-
representation of non-dominant faculty
and staff.

26. THEORY OF SOCIAL &
CULTURAL CAPITAL

27. PIERRE BOURDIEU
(1930-2002)
• French sociologist,
anthropologist, & philosopher
• Distinction between material
wealth and cultural assets of a
particular socioeconomic
class
• Culture adds wealth of the
higher classes

28. PIERRE BOURDIEU
“A general science of the economy of
practices that does not artificially limit
itself to those practices that are
socially recognised as economic must
endeavour to grasp capital, that
‘energy of social physics’... in all of its
different forms... I have shown that
capital presents itself under three
fundamental species (each with its
own subtypes), namely, economic
capital, cultural capital, and social
capital.”
(Bourdieu, in Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992:
118–9)

29. CENTRAL THEMES
•Culture and education are central in the
affirmation of differences between social
classes and in the reproduction of those
differences.
•Schools reproduce the cultural division of
society.

30. SOCIAL CAPITAL
“Social capital is the sum of the
resources, actual or virtual, that accrue
to an individual or a group by virtue of
possessing a durable network of more
or less institutionalized relationships of
mutual acquaintance and recognition.”
(Bourdieu, in Bourdieu &Wacquant, 1992: 119)

31. SOCIAL CAPITAL
In other words, it’s not what you know as
much as who you know in your “durable
networks” that can give you higher or
lower standing, depending on your
“network,” in attaining success.

32. CULTURAL CAPITAL
It represents the collection of non-
economic forces, such as family
background, social class, varying
investments in and commitments to
education, different resources, etc. which
influence academic and career success.

33. CULTURAL CAPITAL
• These are the non-financial social assets
that promote social mobility beyond
economic means.
• It refers to attitudes, knowledge, intellect,
values, languages, style of speech and
dress, physical appearance, and abilities of
primarily the middle classes.
• Schools often devalue the cultures of the
working classes.

34. REFERENCES
• Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (1976) Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the
contradictions of economic life. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Bourdieu, P. and L. P. D. Wacquant. 1992. An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
• Charles, C. Z. & Massey, D. S. (2003). National longitudinal survey of college freshmen, wave 5.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
• Dade, K. B. M. (2008). Divine n promise: A difficult journey. Bellingham, WA:Village Books &
Paper Dreams.
• Harry, B. (1992). Cultural diversity, families, and the special education system, NewYork:
Teachers College Press.
• Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that’s just good teaching!The case for culturally relevant
pedagogy. Theory into Practice,Vol. 34(3), Culturally Relevant Teaching. (Summer), 159-165.
• McDermott, R. P. (1997). Achieving school failure 1972-1997. In G. D. Spindler (Ed.), Education
and cultural process: Anthropological approaches. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, pp.
110-135.
• Spring, J. (2002). American education. NewYork: Routledge.
• Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of
African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797–811.