Cultural Knowledge and Social Stratification I

Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 13:00-14:45
Location: SJES008 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
RC28 Social Stratification (host committee)

Language: English

There is a longstanding concern regarding the relationship between cultural knowledge and social stratification. Cultural knowledge has been an important factor in understanding how socioeconomic status determines life outcomes (Lareau 2015) and how individuals use cultural repertoires to make sense of inequalities and actions (Kuusela 2022). This session aims to bring together studies that discuss the relationships between cultural knowledge and stratification. By cultural knowledge, we refer to a broad array of cultural forms, such as beliefs, preferences, and endowments (Vaisey and Valentino 2018). We invite works covering but not restricted to the following topics:

  • The use of cultural knowledge to navigate social inequalities.
  • Cultural knowledge and the reproduction of social inequalities.
  • The influence of social origin on cultural knowledge acquisition.
  • Effects of cultural knowledge on status attainment processes.
  • Cross-national studies on the perception and attitudes towards social inequalities.
  • The role of different environments such as class, religion, schools, and social networks in the formation of perceptions and attitudes towards social inequalities.
  • Representations of Social stratification in Media and Popular Culture.
  • Gendered Dimensions of Cultural Knowledge and Social stratification.
  • Digital divides and the reproduction of cultural knowledge

    References

    Kuusela, Hanna. 2022. “The Hyperopia of Wealth: The Cultural Legitimation of Economic Inequalities by Top Earners.” Socio-Economic Review 20 (2): 515–38.

    Lareau, Annette. 2015. “Cultural Knowledge and Social Inequality.” American Sociological Review 80 (1): 1–27.

    Vaisey, Stephen, and Lauren Valentino. 2018. “Culture and Choice: Toward Integrating Cultural Sociology with the Judgment and Decision-Making Sciences.” Poetics 68: 131–43.

    Session Organizers:
    Francisco OLIVOS, Lingnan University, Hong Kong and Peng WANG, Fudan University, China
    Oral Presentations
    The Intergenerational Transmission of Parental Reading Involvement: Evidence from the 1970 British Cohort Study
    Markus KLEIN, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom; Katherin BARG, University of Exeter, United Kingdom; William BAKER, Cardiff University, United Kingdom
    Cultural Change in Contemporary Chile
    Luis MALDONADO, Pontificia Universidad Catolica of Chile, Chile; Matias BARSGTED, Instituto de Sociología, Pontificia Universidad de Chile, Chile
    What Constitutes a Subjective Class? a Comparative Study of 64 Countries
    Feng TIAN, Fudan University, China; Steve Liming MENG, Fudan University, China; Yizhao SONG, Fudan University, China; Xiaoguang FAN, Zhejiang University, China