Cultural Capital: Allusions, Gaps and Glissandos in Recent Theoretical Developments Author(s): Michele Lamont and Annette Lareau Source: Sociological Theory , Autumn, 1988, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 153-168 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/202113 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms American Sociological Association , Wiley and Sage Publications, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Sociological Theory This content downloaded from 128.103.24.19 on Thu, 20 Aug 2020 18:39:14 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms CULTURAL CAPITAL: ALLUSIONS, GAPS AND GLISSANDOS IN RECENT THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS* MICHtLE LAMONT ANNETTE LAREAU Princeton University Southern Illinois University at Carbondale The concept of cultural capital has been increasingly used in American sociology to study the impact of cultural reproduction on social reproduction. However, much confusion surrounds this concept. In this essay, we disentangle Bourdieu and Passeron's original work on cultural capital, specifying the theoretical roles cultural capital plays in their model, and the various types of high status signals they are concerned with. We expand on their work by proposing a new definition of cultural capital which focuses on cultural and social exclusion.