The Bourdieusian Paradox

Abstract In Bourdieu’s original cultural capital theory, students’ cultural capital is set against the capital that “pedagogic work” wishes to instill in them. However, the literature has focused exclusively on the cultural capital of students, without examining the effect of teachers’ cultural capital on social reproduction. This article addresses both sides of Bourdieu’s original equation, thereby covering two problems in the literature: (1) difficulties accounting for variances in cultural reproduction across national contexts, and (2) the assumption that the mechanism underlying cultural reproduction lies in the interaction between students and teachers. PIAAC and PISA data are used to investigate the relationship between teachers’ cultural capital, students’ cultural capital, school performance, and (subjective perception of) teachers’ attitudes towards their students. Higher teachers’ cultural capital in a country turns out to be associated with higher cultural reproduction. However, a mediation effect of teachers’ attitudes on this association cannot be established. Using Monte Carlo simulation, the authors explore the effect of teacher-student cultural mismatch at the individual level. They discover that this effect occurs at the level of student-teacher interactions and also at the aggregate level of the overall cultural capital of teachers. National context and structural-level mechanisms underlying cultural reproduction deserve further attention.