Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

9-2014

Abstract

In recent years, sociological research on cosmopolitanism has begun to draw on Pierre Bourdieu to critically examine how cosmopolitanism is implicated in stratification on an increasingly global scale. In this paper, we examine the analytical potential of the Bourdieusian approach by exploring how education systems help to institutionalize cosmopolitanism as cultural capital whose access is rendered structurally unequal. To this end, we first probe how education systems legitimate cosmopolitanism as a desirable disposition at the global level, while simultaneously distributing it unequally among different groups of actors according to their geographical locations and volumes of economic, cultural, and social capital their families possess. We then explore how education systems undergird profitability of cosmopolitanism as cultural capital by linking academic qualifications that signal cosmopolitan dispositions with the growing number of positions that require extensive interactions with people of multiple nationalities.

Keywords

cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan, cultural capital, education, globalization, stratification, universities, higher education, Bourdieu

Discipline

Sociology | Sociology of Culture

Research Areas

Sociology

Publication

Cultural Sociology

Volume

8

Issue

3

First Page

222

Last Page

239

ISSN

1749-9763

Identifier

10.1177/1749975514523935

Publisher

SAGE

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975514523935

Share

COinS