Words: Grace Cutlip (she/her)
‘As Bourdieu reminds us, cultural capital isn’t always deliberately taught, it is absorbed, inherited, cultivated by circumstance’
When reflecting on my experiences as a military brat, moving from school to school across vastly different communities, I’ve come to see how deeply family and systemic inequality combine to shape our disparate access to cultural capital. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu describes cultural capital as the implicit knowledge, behaviors, and social norms that help individuals navigate society. It extends beyond formal education to include ‘the general cultural background, knowledge, and skills’ that allow people to engage with and succeed within particular social environments. These tools, often inherited from family, determine how individuals move through the world.
Growing up as part of an army family meant I encountered a wide spectrum of communities, each with its own access to cultural and economic capital. 1 move in particular stands out: when my family lived near Leckie Elementary School in Washington, D.C., a school shaped by the long shadow of redlining. This discriminatory practice, once used to deny resources to Black neighborhoods, was outlawed in the 1960s but left behind entrenched inequalities in housing, schools, and public services. At Leckie, these inequalities were palpable.
Bars on the front door made Leckie feel more like a fortress than a place of learning. Mornings began with a metal detector standing between us and the classroom. Inside, overcrowded rooms buzzed with chaos, teachers stretched thin, lessons stripped to the bare essentials. There was no music, no art, no enrichment: just the subjects deemed necessary for survival. My classmates were bright, eager, full of potential, but without resources we were left to flounder. As Bourdieu reminds us, cultural capital isn’t always deliberately taught, it is absorbed, inherited, cultivated by circumstance. At Leckie, it felt like we were losing it before we even had the chance to hold it.
Then my family discovered Stoddert Elementary School: just 13 miles away, it was worlds apart. Since we were stationed on the Air Force base, I was not limited to the closest school geographically. While I had options and resources, other students did not. Stoddert had smaller class sizes, well-stocked classrooms, and access to music and art programs. The students were attentive, the teachers had time to engage with us individually, and the atmosphere encouraged curiosity. Suddenly, I wasn’t just being taught to survive; I was learning to thrive.
In 2019, a study revealed that White-majority school districts received $23 billion more than their non-White counterparts, despite serving the same number of students. At Leckie, where 97% of students are Black, math test scores stand at 23%, English at just 8%. At Stoddert, both hover at around 77%. Education funding tells the same story: more than 80% of D.C.’s school budget comes from local taxes, while federal support lags behind at 18%, with grants a mere 1%. If Trump dismantles the Department of Education, the cracks in this foundation will widen. Wealthy schools, propped up by privilege, will stand unshaken. But where resources are already scarce, the ground will give way, the horizon of possibility slipping further from reach.
The gap between Leckie and Stoddert was more than just a matter of funding, it was a divide in cultural capital. Stoddert didn’t just teach academics; it instilled confidence, self-expression, and the fluency to navigate spaces of power. As Bourdieu notes, wealth grants access, not just to elite schools and private tutors, but to the quiet advantages that shape success. At Stoddert, many students had the invisible privilege of a 2-income home, parents with the time to guide their learning, to volunteer, to fundraise, to take them to music lessons and sports. Resources flowed where they were already abundant, donations poured in, property taxes swelled the school’s coffers. Opportunity was not always seen, but always felt. Leckie kept us tethered to the essentials; Stoddert gave its students the tools to reach beyond them.
These experiences gave me a unique vantage point between the disparate lines of cultural capital from which I gained a critical awareness of what lies beneath the surface. Moving schools taught me how redlining’s legacy still shapes the boundaries of opportunity. The schools revealed the stark contrast between those who inherit cultural capital and those who must build it from the ground up.
Society’s culture changes depending on what it values at a given moment, and the lines of cultural capital are constantly being redrawn. Yet for many those lines are rigid, dictated by systemic inequalities that remain entrenched. These boundaries didn’t just determine what children could learn, they shaped how we saw ourselves, how we interacted with the world, and how the world responded to us. If culture isn’t fixed, who draws the lines of capital? And how can we revise the boundaries so that everyone, regardless of their starting point, has the tools to succeed?
