ABSTRACT

Pierre Bourdieu's formulation of capital has been one of the most influential ideas in the sociology of education. Bourdieu suggests that financial capital brings with it access to other, less tangible forms of capital. The social networks of those with considerable capital, both personal and family, tend to be quite different to those of others and these can be used to gain further advantage. For Robert Putnam, communities with high levels of social capital are more cohesive than those without. Putnam's conception of capital has had considerable influence on political thinking around community. For Bourdieu, the triumph of neoliberalism is its success in making the inequalities inherent in the existing economic system hidden and in displacing the worst effects of differential access to the various forms of capital onto those least able to resist.