Description of the Questionnaire

This questionnaire aims to measure participants’ Cultural Capital based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework. It includes three key dimensions: Embodied Cultural Capital, Objectified Cultural Capital, and Institutionalized Cultural Capital. The questionnaire is structured to allow the quantitative evaluation of cultural habits and resources that are often linked to social reproduction and educational performance.

Objective

The objective of this questionnaire is to record and assess the cultural capital of individuals in order to explore its relationship with socio-economic and educational factors. This instrument is suitable for use in sociological, educational policy, and cultural participation research.

Scoring

The items in the first section are scored on a scale from 1 to 5, with “Never” corresponding to 1 and “Very Often” to 5. The items in the second section use binary coding, with “Yes” = 1 and “No” = 0. For the parental education items, coding may follow: Primary School = 1, Lower Secondary = 2, Upper Secondary = 3, University = 4, Postgraduate or higher = 5. A sub-score is calculated for each dimension: the Embodied Cultural Capital score is the mean of items 1 to 5, the Objectified Capital score is the sum of positive answers from items 6 to 10, and the Institutionalized Capital score is the average of responses to items 11 and 12. A total Cultural Capital Index may be computed through weighting or factor analysis.

Data Analysis and Use

The data collected may be analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequencies). The correlation between cultural capital and variables such as socioeconomic status or academic performance can be explored through correlation coefficients (e.g., Pearson or Spearman), analysis of variance (ANOVA), or regression analysis. Factor analysis may also be used to validate the three-dimensional structure of the instrument. Further analysis by subgroup may identify inequalities or cultural differences among populations.

Data Utilization

The data generated by this questionnaire can be used for research, pedagogical, or cultural purposes. More specifically, it can support the study of educational inequalities related to cultural capital, the evaluation of cultural consumption across social groups, the design of educational interventions to promote cultural engagement, and the development of public policy for cultural access.

References

Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In Richardson, J. (Ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education.
Sullivan, A. (2001). Cultural capital and educational attainment. Sociology, 35(4), 893–912.
Chan, T. W., & Goldthorpe, J. H. (2007). Social stratification and cultural consumption. Poetics, 35(2–3), 115–158.
OECD (2012). PISA 2012 Technical Report.