ABSTRACT
The cultural turn helped to highlight the ways in which many forms of oppression in society had a cultural rather than an economic character, depending 'in the last instance' on ascribed characteristics of social groups and cultural meanings. Contemporary cultural studies' preoccupation with aesthetic values is evident in its focus on style and taste, indeed in the definition of its object of study as 'the stylization of life'. Cultures include values among their signifying practices. These may involve judgements and sentiments regarding utility, aesthetics and moral-political matters. The manipulation of sign-values may be about recognition, particularly recognition of difference, and this appears to be what many students of culture find interesting, but it remains an open but crucial question whether the prestige or recognition is deserved. A critical analysis of educational capital cannot evade judgements of the use-value or intrinsic quality of the education with which it is associated.
