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Social reproduction | Social Inequality | MCAT | Khan Academy - YouTube
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- [Voiceover] There
remains a huge amount of
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social inequality between rich families
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and poor families.
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One of the things that we know is
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that this large social inequality
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between the rich and families
with much more resources,
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and the poor elements of society
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seems to replicate itself
across generations.
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So if we label this first
group, "Generation one,"
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and the second group, "Generation two,"
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a large group of people
who have rich parents
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tend to end up pretty wealthy themselves.
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And people who had poorer
parents tend to end up poor.
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This is actually a process
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that's called "Social Reproduction."
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And what social reproduction means is that
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we are reproducing the social
inequality across generations.
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There must be reasons to help
explain what's happening.
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One of the things that we see
that wealthy families have
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is all these dollars here.
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They have a lot of what's
called "Financial Capital."
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The useful thing about financial capital,
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and capital suggests
that when someone has it
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they can invest in something
and get some returns,
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The good thing about financial capital is
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you can invest it into other things.
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You can invest it and obtain
what's called "Social Capital."
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And essentially what social
capital means is building up
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reliable, useful social networks,
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networks of trustworthy,
useful connections.
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>From those connections you can really
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obtain opportunities and
advantages in society.
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The other thing that financial
capital can expose you to
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is something called "Cultural Capital."
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What cultural capital is talking about
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is a few different things.
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So, for example, if your parents are
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regularly exposing you to trips abroad
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and you may be learning foreign
languages, such as French.
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They may be taking you to
movies, to the theater.
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You could have a fine appreciation
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of classical music, for example.
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You may know all the social nuances
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of the local golf club,
know how to play polo,
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know how to do the things
that many middle-class
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and upper-class children know how to do,
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and have those experiences.
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You may also have cultural
items within your house,
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such as paintings, portraits
and other cultural artifacts,
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and you may know a lot about them.
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Your parents will clue you in.
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And both those things, social capital
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and cultural capital, they're capital.
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So with this understanding
you may gain some rewards.
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Part of that reward is
that these two processes,
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these two capitals, can actually
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turbo-charge this social reproduction.
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But, hold on a second.
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Even if someone is really poor,
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won't they have social capital?
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They will certainly have social networks,
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and they will certainly have culture,
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and cultural experiences.
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But I'm gonna bring
something else into this mix.
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I'm gonna bring something
that you would think
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would help to break all of this up.
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I'm gonna bring our educational system in.
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Because one of the
things you can say to me
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is that, hold on, doesn't
our educational system
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give the poor a chance
to break out of poverty
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and the rich, they presumably get
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a good education anyway, right?
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Doesn't it give a chance to
kind of shake up the system,
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put everyone on an equal footing?
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Think about this.
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Does our educational
system value the culture
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of people from the
lower classes as much as
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the culture of the people who
have got much more resources,
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may come from the higher classes
or more privileged classes?
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For an example of this will be graffiti.
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If a child knows all about the graffiti
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in their local neighborhood,
I'm not too sure
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our educational system would care
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as much about that as it would fine art.
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What we may find is
that educational system
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really doesn't value the
culture and the social networks
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of the poorer population,
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or the less advantaged population.
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But what it does is really values
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the cultural capital and social capital
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of the more wealthy people.
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So, in fact, our educational
system can be reinforcing
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this social stratification
that we see here.
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The children of rich
parents are more likely
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to be wealthy themselves, and the children
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of poorer parents are more likely to be,
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to stay poor, compared
to their richer peers.
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So actually our educational system
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may be reinforcing social reproduction.
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Now obviously, a lot of
this may be controversial
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and people may argue against it.
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And there are a lot of
different variations
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and other, and aspects to consider.
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But this is just a brief
overview of social reproduction.
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