Cultural capital: dispositions of the mind and body, for example language, cultural preferences and skills, forms of knowledge and abilities (educational qualifications) that

one acquires through being part of a certain social class. It includes artefacts, attitudes, beliefs, values and taste of an individual that differs from those of people from a different culture.

Bourdieu (1997) states that within the educational field, the most valuable form of capital is cultural capital because academic success is directly dependent on it. Bourdieu (1997)

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describes cultural capital as a power resource, or a way for groups to remain dominant or gain status. Parents pass on their cultural capital in the form of internalised beliefs, modes of thinking and dispositions shared by members of their class to their children. These linguistic and cultural proficiencies of middle and upper class families become a symbolic form of capital, what we call cultural capital (Bourdieu 1998). He further argues that the cultural capital of the middle class has a higher status than that of the working class, amounting in school success being explained in relation to the amount and type of cultural capital inherited from the family than by individual talent and success (Swartz 1997). Yosso (2005) agrees with what Bourdieu says, but rather contends that there is no clear understanding from Bourdieu on how cultural and social networks of poor people are brought together in order to understand how they access their education (Norodien-Fataar 2016:188).

The capital of the Lesotho students is different from one that a typical (white Afrikaner) student at Stellenbosch University should function on, which means there could be cultural capital misalignment for these students. Cultural capital misalignment occurs when there is no smooth placement between different cultural capitals. This happens when students who possess one type of cultural capital come into an educational environment that functions on a different cultural capital. Lesotho students have left their home country to come for what they perceive to be a better education in Stellenbosch. This has required them to function within a different field, with a different cultural capital. These students often feel like “fish out of water” (Reay et

al 2009) in this university because with their habitus, functioning in an unfamiliar field is difficult.

Grenfell (2008) states that capital has three forms, it is objectified, institutionalised and embodied. Objectified capital is the form that is tangible and is in transmittable goods, and is in material form. This includes art, museums, books etc. This form of capital one acquires by their use of economic capital or by receiving it directly from other people. Institutionalised capital is in the form of credentials, qualifications and education history. This form of capital is conventional and has legal value, giving its recipient a form of social status. An example of this form of capital could be education, which gives people upward mobility in societal hierarchy (Swartz 1997). Embodied capital is incorporated within an individual, as principles of

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consciousness and physical features that include body language, intonation, showing affection, attitudes and preferences. The embodied form of capital is cultivated over time, and it is in-built and internalised in an individual. As Bourdieu states, these forms of capitals are intertwined and cannot function independent of the other.

Bourdieu et al (1998) state that families pass onto their children cultural values and class based practices, and a position in the social hierarchy, and therefore, capital is much more than inheritance of financial or material possessions. Schools function on the basis of a middle class capital, which every student is expected to possess for their success, and these institutions ignore the reality that the acquisition of cultural capital depends on what was passed on to someone by the family, which in turn, is largely dependent on social class. In the case of postgraduate students from Lesotho who are studying in Stellenbosch University, who come from a lower social class that is different from one that the university operates on, they are in a low position in the social hierarchy, which might interrupt how they learn and survive the field. Chances of winning in a social game are dependent on the form and amount of capital that individuals possess; therefore, the chances of postgraduate Lesotho students of thriving and surviving in such an institution are questionable. Grenfell (2008:88) states that the value of any capital is partly dependent on social recognition. He states that economic capital for example, is valuable because it gives one status and spending power.

Capital, as Bourdieu posits, functions as power over a field, and Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) suggest that capital does not exist or cannot function except in relation to a field. Bourdieu (1973:80) wrote “by doing away with giving explicitly to everyone what it implicitly demands of anyone, the educational system demands of everyone alike that they have what it does not give. This consists mainly of linguistic and cultural competence and that relationship of familiarity with culture which can only be produced by family upbringing when it transmits the dominant power.”

Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital is used to explain the reason behind disadvantaged and working class students’ low educational achievement in comparison to white middle class

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students, who tend to perform better. The assumption here is that impoverished students do not have the necessary cultural capital for social mobility. I now look into Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth, who identifies cultural wealth in the form of capitals, that prove that working class students have knowledge, skills, abilities and contacts that they possess and utilise.

Each person’s success and/failure is measured on the level of (cultural) capital they have inherited from their families. Even with students at a university, their level of success is measured based on the capital they bring with them to school from their individual families. When people come to a field with different cultural capital, the reception and way of life will differ, because that is influenced by what they know from their respective homes. The level of success is therefore dependent on whether the capital and habitus they possess is what is needed in the field with which they operate. In the case where students’ capital and habitus is dissimilar with the school field, which is the case with working class students, students are marginalised and social inequality is promoted. According to Brar (2016), individuals enter a field with the hope of securing benefits and profits of such a field. He further states that there are aspects of an individual’s cultural capital and habitus that might be valuable in their field, and the greater the overlap, the greater the chances of success.

3.5. Community Cultural Wealth (CCW)

Yosso (2005) acknowledges that education is an important tool towards change, but it simultaneously reproduces the status quo of inequality. She notes that dominant groups assume that impoverished people do not have the social and cultural capital that is required for social mobility, which causes schools to treat students from poor backgrounds as lacking in such fields, without realising that these students have other forms of capital that they utilise to survive oppressive surroundings. She therefore introduces different forms of capitals that students from impoverished backgrounds use to navigate and succeed in school.

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The six capitals introduced by Yosso (2005) make up Community Cultural Wealth (CCW), which is the ‘wealth’ and resources owned and used by students in the absence of expected middle class cultural capital. This framework proves that students may not have the required capital in school, but they have other domestic practices that help them in navigating their presence in schools. I use Yosso’s theory to address the deficiency in Bourdieu’s theory, which identifies how privilege and status can be protected, and does not address how capitals that working- class students access within their own communities can help them survive. As Jayakumar, et

al (2013) states, “[t]his limitation lends itself to problematic interpretation, where the

underachievement of low-income students and students of colour is attributed to a lack of cultural capital” (p. 556).

CCW is defined as “the accumulated assets and resources found in the lives and histories of disadvantaged students” (Yosso, 2005:77). According to Yosso (2005), impoverished communities develop forms of capital, that are important in such communities, capitals that should be recognised in order to understand how students from poor communities’ access and pull off their education. Yosso (2005: 82) challenges the traditional approaches that claim that working class students’ cultural capital is not enough for their survival in schools. She instead states, “poor communities draw on their CCW in order to establish social and radical justice”. Yosso states that over and above cultural capital, there are other forms of capital that poor communities possess, and these capitals should be recognised, to understand how students from poor communities’ access and engage in their education. Moeller and Bielfeldt (2011:85) assert that these capitals are neither mutually exclusive nor static; they are rather dynamic processes that build on one another as part of Community Cultural Wealth.

According to Yosso (2005), students from impoverished families acquire these forms of capital from their society, and rely on them for survival. Students also draw strength from their families and community to survive and resist macro and micro forms of oppression. I use these capitals to argue that postgraduate students from Lesotho have other forms of capitals that they draw from for their successful stay at SU. Yosso outlines six such capitals, and those are aspirational,

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linguistic, familial, social, navigational and resistant capitals, which students use as they

navigate their educational field. These capitals are described below.

1. Aspirational capital is summarised by the notion of resilience. It is the ability of students