ABSTRACT
Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital has been central in the study of social inequalities. Yet, what it means exactly, especially its ‘embodied’ forms, has been subject to diverse and possibly contradictory interpretations. This chapter starts by investigating its first developments in Bourdieu’s collaborative work in the sociology of education. It then assesses the extent to which the idea of highbrow culture is central to the definition and operationalization of cultural capital. I show that relying on the notion of embodied cultural capital without acknowledging its links with highbrow culture empties the concept of its meaning. I argue that Bourdieu’s social theory is also an aesthetic theory, which considers very seriously aesthetic values. Highbrow aesthetics is indeed what gives values to people’s cultural resources. Finally, I demonstrate that, if the mechanisms behind the formation of cultural capital remain the same, its composition changes over time and can include new aesthetic principles (e.g. playful), which are associated with new forms of symbolic domination in the social space.
