DISCUSSION
Cultural Capital, Reference Group, and Social Mobility in India Pramil K Panda
The article “Rags to Riches? Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in India” (EPW, 4 November 2017) by Iversen, Krishna and Sen examines intergenerational occupational mobility in India. This comment links this study with Krishna’s earlier contribution, “Making It in India: Examining Social Mobility in Three Walks of Life” (EPW, 7 December 2013), and interprets these works alongside Bourdieu’s (1986) and Merton’s (1949) established theories of social mobility.
Pramil K Panda (
[email protected]) teaches at Xavier Institute of Social Service, Ranchi.
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n their article “Rags to Riches? Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in India” (EPW, 4 November 2017), Vegard Iversen, Anirudh Krishna and Kunal Sen have examined the process of intergenerational occupational mobility in India through the analysis of data from a large-scale survey called the India Human Development Survey (IDHS)–II, conducted in 2011–12 by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). Another article by Krishna (“Making It in India: Examining Social Mobility in Three Walks of Life” EPW, 7 December 2013), published almost four years earlier in this journal, articulates the various factors (both enabling and hindering), responsible for the social mobility of individuals coming from different social and economic backgrounds in India by looking at three occupational silos: engineering, business management, and civil service. This discussion aims at establishing a link between the above two articles by providing some theoretical supplements in the light of two established theories of social mobility: Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital; and Robert K Merton’s theory of reference group. Research on social mobility goes back to the late 1920s, ever since the publication of the classic work by Sorokin (1927). However, in India it began much later, particularly in the early 1950s under the ambit of caste studies initiated by Srinivas (1952), with his study on the Coorgs of South India. This caste model based on the structural–functional perspective remained the dominant one in subsequent studies conducted by other scholars, until the attempt of Beteille (1966) to change the paradigm from caste to class, and efforts by other Marxist scholars to study social
mobility from the dialectical–historical perspective based on a class model. However, both these models put emphasis on “collective mobility” rather than “individual mobility,” and studies on the latter gained momentum especially after the liberalisation of the Indian economy in the early 1990s, during which period numerous career opportunities became available for individuals. The two articles under discussion here provide a novel attempt by the authors to add to this knowledge base. Cultural Capital Cultural capital, as conceptualised by Bourdieu (1986), is a form of power beyond the economic form, and is exercised through different non-economic goods and services such as information, articulation, education, and aesthetics. It is a metaphor used by Bourdieu to articulate the existence of power and domination within society, through cultural stratification, and to argue that success can be better explained by the inheritance of cultural capital from the family, rather than through individual talent. Similar social origins need not guarantee similar achievements to two different individuals endowed with an unequal amount and type of cultural capital. Cultural capital exists in three different forms: embodied, objectified and institutional. In its embodied form, cultural capital is the ensemble of all the cultivated dispositions which are internalised by the individual through socialisation beginning in early childhood. This requires “pedagogical action,” that is, investment of time by parents, other family members, relatives, peer groups and sometimes hired professionals, in order to sensitise the child to cultural distinctions. Objects like books, as well as different aesthetic, electronic, and scientific instruments that require specialised skills on the part of the individual are examples of the objectified form of cultural capital. Institutional cultural capital refers to the quality of education received, and credentials acquired within the educational systems that the individual has been associated with.
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DISCUSSION
Reference Group Reference group, according to Merton (1949), is a group referred to by people in order to evaluate their own qualities, attitudes, values, behaviours, roles, performances, aspirations and ambitions. It acts as a psychological frame of reference for the individuals to shape their own behaviours, conduct self-appraisals and form their own attitudes. The adept, who belongs to a reference group, and to whom the individual refers, is called a “reference individual” similar to a “role model.” Reference groups are of two types: membership group and non-membership group. The membership group is the one with which individuals share their primary membership, such as family, neighbourhood and peer group. It acts as the normative group to which individuals hold their attitudes in conformity with what they perceive to be the group consensus. Non-membership group is the group with which an individual shares either secondary or tertiary relationships, or to which the individual is an outsider. These can be social organisations, administrative offices, and political parties. It acts as a comparative group that the individual makes comparisons with, and against which they conduct self-evaluations, thus socialising themselves to what they perceive to be the group’s norms. Social Mobility in India Understanding social mobility in the Indian context is a challenge, since the social structure in India has evolved with features of both caste and class within its fold. The class-like characteristics found in the caste system and vice versa, make the phenomenon more complex. However, locating the overall findings of both the articles under discussion within the above theoretical frameworks, one can argue that the lack of cultural capital, in all its forms, in the cases of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), as well as rural residents, restricts their upward intergenerational social mobility, and instead paves the way for downward social mobility in the competitive market situation (Iversen et al 2017). Similarly, a rural background acts as the most significant handicap to substantial Economic & Political Weekly
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upward social mobility for students, when competing with their urban counterparts. Additionally, the dearth of good, well-informed, and inspirational membership reference groups in the rural areas, as opposed to urban areas also adds to their woes (Krishna 2013). Abundant cultural capital comes from within the family, if an individual belongs to a relatively higher caste, upper class, urban residence, where members possess better educational backgrounds. It helps one belonging to such a family as parents play positive roles, often modifying their work–life balance to suit the needs of the children, and by providing support in shaping their careers. Aspirations are built up from the very beginning with the intervention of parents, as well as the guidance of other family members. Sometimes, even established family tradition in terms of occupation across generations helps children in pursuing such career goals. Thus, access to adequate cultural capital enables the reproduction of intergenerational social mobility. On the other hand, individuals with a lower caste and/or class status, rural upbringing, poor educational background, and experiencing relative poverty, have to struggle at every step in their search for better career prospects in order to achieve upward social mobility. Individuals possessing greater cultural capital also get immediate access to inspirational membership reference groups since they can access role models within the family, neighbourhood and peer groups who help shape their career aspirations right from childhood. On the other hand, those individuals without any or with very little access to any kind of cultural capital depend upon the nonmembership reference groups for inspiration and motivation while identifying role models, and undergo the painful process of anticipatory socialisation.1
Thus, the lack of achievement on the part of the past generations results in a failure to engender a better environment, and limits the potential of the future generations, thereby perpetuating disadvantages in the process of achieving upward social mobility in terms of profession. Whereas the article by Iversen et al (2017) only analyses the status of intergenerational social mobility in India on the basis of the available data from IHDS–II and seeks remedial measures, Krishna (2013) in his article advocates for institutional intervention on the part of the state in order to overcome the above problem, and to change the existing social situation by breaking the current vicious circle, which is a very welcome idea. Note 1
Anticipatory socialisation refers to the process of non-group members learning to take up the values and standards of non-membership reference groups that they aspire to join in future. See Merton and Rossi (1950).
References Beteille, Andre (1966): Caste, Class and Power: Changing Patterns of Stratification in a Tanjore Village, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1986): “The Forms of Capital,” Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, J Richardson (ed), New York: Greenwood Press, pp 241–58. Iversen, Vegard, Anirudh Krishna and Kunal Sen (2017): “Rags to Riches? Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in India,” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 52, No 44, pp 107–14. Krishna, Anirudh (2013): “Making It in India: Examining Social Mobility in Three Walks of Life,” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 48, No 49, pp 38–49. Merton, Robert K (1949): Social Theory and Social Structure, New York: The Free Press. Merton, Robert K and Alice Kitt Rossi (1950): “Contributions to the Theory of Reference Group Behaviour,” Continuities in Social Research, Robert K Merton and Paul F Lazarsfeld (ed), New York: The Free Press. Sorokin, Pritirim A (1927): Social Mobility, New York: Harper and Brothers. Srinivas, M N (1952): Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India, London: Oxford University Press.
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