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From September, educational settings are to be inspected using a revised Education Inspection Framework (EIF). Within this new framework, the term ‘cultural capital’ has

been introduced. All settings will now receive a judgement about the quality of education offered, determined by how well the curriculum provides children with cultural capital.

The term is defined as the ‘essential knowledge that children need to prepare them for future success’. Settings have a key responsibility through their teaching and learning intentions to make a difference for all children in order to help them ‘experience the awe and wonder of the world in which they live, through the seven areas of learning’ (Ofsted 2019).

So why has this term been introduced, and why has it incited so much debate across

the education sector? Cultural capital sits with the Government’s intention to reduce social inequalities – of which education is seen as being instrumental in realising this ambition. Through bestowing education capital on children and families whose backgrounds are deemed disadvantaged, there is a view that this will increase their life chances – effectively creating a more equal playing field.

THE ORIGINS OF CULTURAL CAPITALThe term cultural capital is most commonly associated with the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He developed this term as part of a wider framework that he used to explain the inequalities that exist within the social world.

Bourdieu used the analogy of game-playing to explain how within any social field there are many different players. Each

player brings with them a particular set of capital, in the form of economic (money and assets) and cultural (education and qualifications). The amount of economic and cultural capital possessed determines a player’s social capital, which effectively gives them membership to a particular social group.

Capital is something that is accumulated over time and can be exchanged in order to benefit your life in some way. The accumulation of capital begins as soon as a child is born. The greater the investment a parent can make towards their child’s learning and development, then the more likely they are to be school-ready.

HabitusMembership of a social group also assumes the possession of a particular set of dispositions. Bourdieu referred to this as habitus. Dispositions are all- ➤

What is cultural capital and why has it become a contested topic, asks Dr Jo Basford

cultural capitalAn essential guide to…

EYFS best practice

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu said the amount of economic and cultural capital determines a person’s social capital

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EYFS best practice

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encompassing – they relate to how we think, behave, look and act. They also relate to our taste in clothes, music, food and social activities.

Popular culture serves to reinforce some of the assumptions that can be made about particular social groups. Take, for example, television programmes about gypsy traveller families. The wedding dresses that brides wear are portrayed as representative of their ‘taste’ in clothing.

Such representations also reinforce taken-for-granted assumptions about perceived deficits in cultural capital in the form of poor literacy skills and social etiquette. Bourdieu argued that not only does this encourage stereotyping, but it limits the opportunities for this cultural group to alter their position in society.

For parents who possess high levels of capital, they consciously cultivate their child’s cultural capital. Thinking about cultural capital in this way helps us to understand why some children are perceived to be more school-ready than others. The child who regularly visits the local library, who attends Beavers or Rainbows or who frequently goes on family outings is the child who has had the type of experiences that will better prepare them for the demands of formal schooling.

Investments such as these are seen to yield the best return contributing to future educational success, and it is this viewpoint that has been taken up by policy-makers and has served to inform the content of the curriculum and the new inspection framework.

A CONTENTIOUS SUBJECTCultural capital is a contentious subject. Concerns within the early years sector relate to how cultural capital is being interpreted and are based on two key contentions:

■ What types of ‘essential knowledge’ are deemed to be of greatest value and importance for our youngest children?

■ Is there an assumption that the early

years curriculum can ‘fix’ society’s inequalities and children’s life chances?Early years consultant and author Helen

Moylett has previously argued that definitions of cultural capital are being underpinned by westernised, middle-class values and expectations. The focus on school-readiness informs the types of culturally specific knowledge, skills and learning behaviours that are most valued.

There is a danger that we could assume that parents who are deemed disadvantaged do not have the capacity to provide an appropriate home learning environment which will equip children with the essential knowledge and dispositions to be successful learners.

‘National’ and ‘natural’As Liz Brooker, a senior lecturer in early childhood at the Institute of Education, University of London, and author of Cultural Capital in the Preschool Years, notes, sometimes the ‘national’ curriculum can be completely at odds with the ‘natural’ curriculum that is offered by families.

There can be huge variations in parenting practices which are informed by multiple factors such as socio-economic status, nationality and ethnicity, and the parents’ own habitus related to their education, employment and migration. The current focus and interpretation of cultural capital assumes that early years settings can

■ To what extent do the learning experiences you provide for children have cultural relevance?

■ How do you work in partnership with your parents to genuinely know and understand about the funds of knowledge their children are bringing to your setting?

■ In what ways may we shut down opportunities for children to gain cultural capital if we do not understand their unique cultural background?

FUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE: AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVEWhen children first enter an early years setting, they bring with them their own unique cultural capital. Embodied within this is a set of dispositions towards learning (or what Bourdieu referred to as habitus). Within the EYFS, these dispositions are referred to as Characteristics of Effective Learning (CoEL). These are ‘habits of mind’ which, given the right opportunities, can expand our learning potential and help us to build confidence to experiment and try

things out (Stewart 2011). Is this what Ofsted perceive as a prerequisite capability in order to experience ‘awe and wonder’?

This approach to cultural capital lends itself to a sociocultural perspective of learning. It encourages us to think about capital in the form of the unique funds of knowledge that children bring from their home into their educational setting. Funds of knowledge are the bodies of knowledge related to information, skills and strategies which underlie household functioning, development and well-being.

An easy way of understanding this idea is to reflect on your own upbringing. What everyday activities took place in your home of which you were directly or indirectly involved? These activities may have covered anything from cooking to cleaning, mealtimes, screen time and shopping. There will be many things that you would learn about household functioning through your involvement, and you will have taken this learning into other aspects of your life beyond your home environment.

LanguageLanguage will have been a key feature in these activities and it is a cultural tool that we need in order to participate in social activities. When children are acquiring funds of knowledge, they are actively engaged in the learning process. They also have an intrinsic motivation to be involved and will, therefore, be more likely to want to participate actively.

Think about the toddler who is insistent on putting on their own shoes or the four-year-old who wants to help wash the car. During these encounters they will need to engage in a range of metacognitive processes that may involve taking risks, trying things out and persisting until the goal is achieved. The adult plays an important role in this activity.

Because they have a close, personal relationship with the child, they know how to tune in to their thinking. They share a common language and a common

compensate for all of these factors. This view is very narrow, and such a literal translation could result in practices that become tokenistic in their approach.

Think, for example, of the expectation for all children to learn how to eat ‘properly’ using a knife and fork, or being able to recite ‘traditional’ western nursery rhymes and stories. Knowing about these types of things has the most significant exchange value in middle-class society. What if they are neither experiences nor expectations that are of value in a child’s own home setting?

Tick list of activitiesEqually, we may feel it is important to offer cultural experiences that are unfamiliar to children, such as visiting a museum or introducing them to different genres of music. These types of activities would certainly be easy to document, and could provide useful evidence to show to Ofsted inspectors. However, as chief executive of the London Early Years Foundation group of nurseries, June O’Sullivan, warns, such activities should not be a list of activities that are ‘ticked off ’ as they neither deepen children’s understanding nor strengthen their language, and may even possibly alienate their parents.

The EYFS is very clear that every child is unique, and that they learn and develop in different ways. Therefore, the experiences that we provide for children need to reflect

these principles. Our aim should be to provide learning activities that have cultural relevance to each and every group of learners that attend our settings, and that every child’s experiences and interests are of equal value.

Reflection point ■ What sorts of assumptions may we make about children that lead us to view them in a deficit manner?

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Children’s fund of knowledge includes what they have learned at home

Three-year-old Rania has recently moved from Egypt and now attends the LEYF Queensborough Community Nursery in west London. Her mum has started a small business in baking delicately made cakes which are commonly eaten in Egypt.

One day at nursery, many of the children were enjoying using the cutters and rolling pins to make birthday cakes. Manager Jean Hudson was sitting with the children also making ‘cakes’.

Rania went over to the home corner

and brought back a salt pot. She tapped the pot delicately over her small cakes, saying, ‘This is the cinnamon that you put on when the cake is ready to be baked.’ Jean was able to tune in to Rania’s expert knowledge about cake-making and invited her to show the other children round the table how to roll the dough to make the cakes.

The children were keen to replicate the activity with ‘real’ ingredients. When Rania’s mum collected her from nursery, Jean asked if she would like to do some baking with the children.

case study: responding to funds of knowledge

Adults who have close relationships with children can tune in to their thinking

EYFS best practice

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➜MORE INFORMATION

● Brooker L (2015) ‘Cultural Capital in the Preschool Years: Can the

state “compensate” for the family?’ in Alenen L, Brooker

L and Mayall B Childhood with Bourdieu. Palgrave McMillan

● Gonzalez N, Moll LC and Amanti C (2005) Funds of Knowledge:

Theorizing practices in households, communities and

classrooms. Routledge ● Hedges H (2010) ‘Whose goals and interests? The interface of children’s play and teachers,

pedagogical practices’ in Brooker E and Edwards S Engaging Play.

OU Press ● Stewart N (2011) How Children

Learn: The characteristics of effective learning. BAECE

purpose. Such an approach helps to develop skills and dispositions which, once embodied, can be transposed into future learning opportunities.

As early years practitioners, our aim should be to create similar conditions for learning that become fertile ground for cultivating the necessary dispositions to acquire cultural capital.

CULTURAL CAPITAL IN PRACTICEAs early years practitioners, we have a fundamental responsibility to understand what funds of knowledge children are bringing to their learning. This helps us understand the things that excite, inspire and motivate them to see and experience awe and wonder.

Funds of knowledge are a cultural resource that we can use to help children make sense of their world. If we provide learning experiences that relate to children’s own social worlds, then we can respond

meaningfully to children’s ongoing interests and inquiries (Hedges 2010). We can utilise these opportunities to help expand their vocabulary, as well as encourage the development of their CoEL.

One of the challenges for early years settings is to find ways to build authentic relationships with parents in order to better understand the funds of knowledge that children are bringing with them. We quite often do this by inviting parents into our settings for meetings and workshops, or conduct home visits to support transitions. Think about ways in which you can involve yourself in your local community that are reflective of how families engage in their local community.

You may take a trip to the museum if it holds some cultural value for the children. But equally children may experience more genuine awe and wonder by experiencing activities that take place in their immediate community. In this way, they are drawing on materials and resources that are familiar to

them, and they have the opportunity to interact with people with whom they are familiar. These are the types of experiences that not only have cultural relevance, but are more likely to help to develop the necessary dispositions to face future learning situations with confidence and a genuine love of learning.

Dr Jo Basford is senior lecturer in childhood, youth and education at Manchester Metropolitan University

Acknowledgements With thanks to the staff at the London Early Years Foundation nurseries for their contributions to this article

Children who come to the LEYF nurseries have rich, diverse backgrounds, and many of the nurseries are mixed in terms of social cultural and economic capital. Going out into the community is an everyday event for the children and usually has a purpose. It may be to visit the local fire station, following an invitation to come and see the new fire engine. Sometimes the children have planned an activity that requires them to go shopping.

One day, the children at one LEYF nursery were making faces out of fruit, and they were unsure what they could use for ‘blue’ eyes. A trip to the local shop provided the children and adults with an opportunity to look at the blueberries, grapes and plums. Lots of discussion ensued about the names

of the fruit, their taste, texture and their appropriateness for their task.

One Saturday a group of dads and their children from another LEYF nursery went to the local Chinese restaurant for lunch. Families from many cultural backgrounds went to the restaurant. As well as the usual ‘dad’ conversation, there was lots of discussion about their own cultural traditions regarding food.

On another occasion, the children had been thinking about how lullabies can help babies to sleep. This led to parents sharing their own family lullabies (written in their home language) which formed a display in the entrance. This was a way of sharing cultural capital and bringing families together through a shared language.

At the LEYF nursery in Soho, there is

an emphasis on the arts. The setting has had an eclectic range of visitors who have come to work with the children. Visitors include drag queens who come to read stories to artists, and musicians who come to work with the children. The nursery recently created a pop-up art exhibition with art work that had been produced by the children. This culminated in a community event which included an auction of the children’s art work.

Cultural capital is central to the curriculum and pedagogy at LEYF. To find out more, see chief executive June O’Sullivan’s blog:

➜ www.leyf.org.uk/what-is-cultural-capital

➜ www.leyf.org.uk/cultural-capital-in-action

LEYF NURSERIES: DEVELOPING CULTURAL CAPITAL

Settings should provide experiences that relate to children’s own social world