Blind to culture. How classed cognition prevents cultural policy initiatives from increasing cultural participation for children

Abstract

Since its first formulation in the post war years, Nordic cultural policy has had a stated aim to democratize culture, but with limited success. A growing literature argues that understanding policy failure is needed for a better functioning cultural policy. The present study uses two waves of panel data on cultural participation for parents and children in Bergen, Norway (N = 4754) to analyze the impact of three locally implemented cultural policy interventions designed in part to democratize culture for children. Using work with cultural policy failure, and tools from Bourdieu’s Sociology of Culture, this study finds that policies fail in systematic ways related to classed cognition. This leads to a ‘Matthew effect’ for cultural goods, as policies enable easier access to culture for those already invested in cultural participation, while the policies fail to even out social inequalities. There are both scientific and policy implications of the findings. First, data show that a cultural reproduction model seems a better fit than a cultural mobility model of cultural participation. Second, policy planners rarely factor in implications of the former in implementation of cultural policies designed to equalize distributions of culture. As a consequence, cultural policy initiatives to reduce inequalities in access to culture may lead to an exacerbation of cultural inequalities.