ABSTRACT
The capitals Bourdieu identifies as corresponding with academic success are economic, cultural and social. He argues the habitus acquired in the family underlies the structuring of school experience. Bourdieu explains that academic capital is the guaranteed product of the combined effects of cultural transmission by the family and cultural transmission by the school. The success many of the girls achieved at Greenlea Comprehensive can be associated with their understanding of how to play the game. They understood that they needed to develop themselves in relation to their studies as well as their extra-curricular activities or cultural capital. The girls expectations demonstrate the change in the conditions of existence between generations in relation to educational opportunity and in particular what is deemed to be impossible, possible and probable. As Bourdieu argues, the universalism of symbolic power is achieved by making people believe or accept its legitimacy; the education system plays a part in this process.
