Transmission of cultural capital and status attainment - An analysis of development between 15 and 45 years of age

Abstract

Starting with Bourdieu’s habitus and capital theory, this paper focuses on the question of whether the cultural resources of families and students have an impact on the status attainment process between the ages of 15 and 45. The analysis is based on the LifE survey, which follows up a youth study conducted by Fend et al. between 1979 and 1983. It can be shown by means of a structural equation model that there is a substantial transmission of cultural capital between parents and their children and that students’ cultural resources have an effect on their educational attainment (reproduction effect). Besides this social inheritance, the amount of cultural capital acquired by age 35 also depends on educational attainment. The effect of cultural capital over the life course is limited to the period up to the completion of vocational/professional education.