Essay on Cultural Capital and Exclusion of Outsiders
The cultural capital is one of the fundamental concepts of the contemporary sociological science. The concept of cultural capital involves widely-shared cultural signals for social inclusion or exclusion (Macionis & Gerber, 2010:152). However, often people fail to notice how the cultural capital works. In this regard, I can refer to my personal example since, now, when I learned of the cultural capital, I can recall a case from my past when I and some of my peers applied our cultural capital to exclude an individual from our peer group. In this regard, the rile of the cultural capital is very important because, on the one hand, the cultural capital contributes to the unification of people, who share the same or similar values, and leads to exclusion of those, who have different values and views.
In the past, I was a member of a small group of bosom friends. We were four at the time, but once one boy seemed to be keen to join our small group. The newcomer seemed to be a good guy, who seemed to match our group. At any rate, we believed that he was just like one of us, while his friendliness made us believe that he can be our good friend.
At first, we admitted the newcomer to our group but soon we realized that he was totally different from us. In fact, he was trying to take the lead in our group, where we have already distributed all the functions. More important he was even trying to bully on some of us. In fact, the behavior of the newcomer became irritating for our group members. Some of us started to express their dissatisfaction openly, while others stood silent but they also felt that the newcomer was actually quite different from us. For instance, we would never admitted bullying either of our group members. In stark contrast, we would unite efforts to resist to any attempt of bullying or offense being committed against our friends. This is why the aggressive behavior of the newcomer untied our group fast against him.
We did not make any conspiracies or any secret agreements against him but altogether we expelled him from our small group. I just stopped communicating with him, some others followed my example and were reluctant to communicate with him, while one of my friends just bullied him back when the boy tried to push on him. In such a way, we excluded the newcomer from our group of friends and we had never admitted again into our close circle.
In such a way, we expelled the newcomer from our group, although, at first, he seemed to be a good guy. However, the failure of the newcomer to take the right place in our group, where all the functions of each group member were distributed, resulted in his exclusion from our group. In fact, we were good friends for years and each of us knew each other well. We also knew what each of us could do and what each of us was best in. As a result, we did not pay much attention to our hierarchy. Instead, we just performed our functions and we were satisfied with it. The appearance of the newcomer misbalanced our group since the newcomer did not like his position and attempted to change functions of our group members. He apparently wanted to take the lead but our group was too friendly to let him do so. As a result, we did not sacrifice our common values and principles and we just expelled him because his values were absolutely hostile for our group.
At this point, it is possible to refer to the functionalist theory, which holds the premise that the society is a complex system whose parts work together to promote the overall progress of the society but each part of the society is responsible for its specific function (De Graaf, De Graaf & Kraaykamp, 2000:98). In fact, our group also distributed functions between group members, although we did unconsciously. What made us united were common values and principles and we were strong due to them.
The exclusion of the newcomer from our group was the manifestation of functionalism since the newcomer did not share nor respect our values. In fact, we had no other option but to expel. Otherwise, he would just ruin our group. In such a way, our group used the cultural capital to exclude the outsider and to keep our group united. In fact, the new boy failed to match our group. Instead, he was taking his place in our group through conflicting with our group members and challenging their position and role in our group. Hence, within functionalist framework, we excluded the individual, who did not share our values and could not find his place and function in our group.
Thus, the cultural capital turns out to be a powerful tool which helps social groups to stay united, to let new members join them or expel them depending on whether they share the similar values or not.
