Let's talk about 'Cultural Capital.'

This is a difficult and worrying time for so many parents in so many different ways. We are all in it together, yet everyone's circumstances are entirely unique. The reality remains however, the children of the Covid-19 pandemic school lockdown have missed out on a big chunk of their face-to-face education. With advice coming from every official direction as to how we might think about closing the attainment gap, what the provision of a catch up curriculum might look like and the future prospects of those who have all but missed a year of formal learning, I want to bring something else into the mix; and it isn't more grammar, literary analysis or sentence structure (not even as an impassioned English teacher). I want to talk about cultural capital. In 2019, Ofsted formally required schools to develop their students' cultural capital, a framework that can be traced back to 1970's sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In very simple, straightforward terms, the more capital a person has, the more socially mobile they are. In education, we can relate this capital to literature, art, history, our interaction with the world including travel, politics, commerce and industry. But why is this relevant? Why do I want to talk about cultural capital?

As someone who has taught in a variety of contexts and settings, including a classroom, I value having the opportunity to embed cultural capital in my lessons at every opportunity; to teach in a greater context. And more than that, I learn so much from my students every day. Those who have lived differently to me and are generous enough to share their experiences. It is my job to guide that learner along a path that helps them to grow, to progress, to develop their social mobility by calling upon those experiences and using them advantageously. This is why we have so much to focus on in the coming year in relation to cultural capital. Our young people have lost so much, but they have also gained a unique perspective that can be balanced with a nourishing and fruitful academic education, if we as their mentors are mindful and creative. Piling greater pressure onto already challenged learners without building them as whole people, could be ultimately detrimental. Let's talk to them about the world as it now is, let us foster within them an interest in life; for which English language and literature just happens to be a very handy tool! Before we try too much harder to deconstruct a poem with a child who may never have laid their hand on a poetry book, let's find out where we might some rhymes to make us laugh til we cry. Or watch Hamilton.

The concept of teaching of cultural capital is not without its critics. Some see it as a way of drip-feeding the ideologies of the elite into the wider architecture of mainstream education. Imposing cultural preferences favoured by the higher education system, dictated by ambitions of imperialism. But I think it has more to do with exploring a rich and broad curriculum that at least attempts to even the playing field of experience and knowledge. I taught an English class of 16 year olds in a school not far from London, on a direct train route into the City. However, not one of my young charges had ever been to London or anywhere like it. They had no prior knowledge relating to a City upon which I could teach them the content of the curriculum; the Dickensian novel. We had to improvise, and improvise we did. One day, a student with very challenging behaviour who was at risk of permanent exclusion, came into my lesson, unable to contain her excitement. "Miss! I was able to talk about everything we learned about the City in my science lesson this morning! All the fog and gasses and the industrial revolution and stuff! It was amazing! I actually knew it."

And that is why I really want to talk about cultural capital. Kate Lindsay