Elites and Cultural and Social Capital

Purpose - This paper aims to identify the factors that foster an interest in opera and Opera Houses as a specific form of cultural capital and how the Opera House tourist constructs images of destinations from the cognitive, affective and conative dimensions.
Design/methodology/approach - A social constructivist methodology was adopted, and data was captured through online qualitative questionnaires from 226 Opera House tourists using a simple random sampling approach. These enquired about the development of their interest in opera and Opera Houses and the influence this exerts on their destination image formation process.
Findings - This form of cultural capital is mainly developed by exposure to art forms through family, social and further reference groups. Opera Houses project cognitive images of cosmopolitanism, affective images of social belonging and conative images of further opportunities to experience culture and leisure fostering destination loyalty and place attachment.
Research limitations - Productions of both opera and ballet are staged at Opera Houses, opening avenues for further research on either the opera or ballet tourist markets specifically using case studies across the ample spectrum of Opera Houses around the world.
Practical implications - In addition to the visual appeal and quality of cultural produce, tourism practitioners can use an Opera House's projected affective images of social cohesion and togetherness to attract the Opera House tourist market. Opera Houses enrich a destination's visual and cultural landscapes, cementing the need to preserve and promote their contributions to the destination's cultural identity.
Social implications - This study highlights the need for cultural policy and audience development strategies that cultivate this type of cultural capital resulting in demand for and supply of cultural products that in turn stimulate the development of this niche cultural tourism market segment.
Originality/value - To the best of author's knowledge, this is the first study that has approached the Opera House tourist from the destination image formation context.

Too little attention has been paid to the school institutions intended to educate and socialize the children of the upper classes. Greece has a significant history of private educational institutions. Yet their history and role within the educational system and society has been consistently neglected. The study of elite private education and its relationship with the social reproduction of the upper and middle classes in Greece has been even more neglected. Through a study of elite private secondary schools, following the theoretical model of Pierre Bourdieu, we explored the relationship that the middle and upper social strata of Greek society maintain with specific private schools. In order to determine the above, we conducted a quantitative field survey at 13 well-known private schools in Athens, using a questionnaire. In these schools we find considerable over-representation of the social categories that are placed at the summit of the social hierarchy. A basic argument of our study was that different sections of the middle and upper classes develop different educational strategies to ensure their social reproduction and to increase their privileges. These different strategies adopted by traditional and more recently emerging social classes are reflected in the differences among the elite private schools as a “field” and they distinguished the very top private schools from the less prestigious one. Also, we have found that sections of the Greek upper and middle class provide their offspring, through certain schools and activities, with an international capital which is a necessary condition for their future participation in international educational and professional markets. The study’s central research methodology included geometrical data analysis such as correspondence analysis.

The purpose of this article is to challenge Ştefan Zeletin’s classical sociological thesis (regarding the economic and politic extinction of the great  Wallachian boyar-class) which is not historically sustainable neither on economic, nor on political grounds. From an economic point of view, we argue that the great Wallachian boyar families expanded their areas of economic interest, between 1774 and 1866, through industrial, banking, land-leasing or commercial investments,
both internally, by founding market-places and fairs, and internationally, by getting involved in the export of cereal and animal commodities. From a political point of view, we want to mention the fact that 95% of the Prime Ministers of the United Principalities of Romania (1859-1862) and of Romania (1862-1916) belong to the boyar social class. Between 1859 and 1916, long after Ştefan Zeletin proclaims the complete political abolishment of the great boyars, 46% of those who held the highest position in the modern state – namely that of a Prime Minister of Wallachia (within the Romanian Principalities) or of Romania – were the representatives of the
23 great Wallachian boyar families. The reason for this amazing phenomenon of the Wallachian nobility’s perfect adaptation to the Western modernity lies on the use –
in the capitalist sense – of the old privileges, monopolies, immunities, exemptions, benefits and favors (of feudal origin) whose exclusive beneficiaries were the great Wallachian boyars.

Upper-class social clubs in European metropolises have mostly been described through isolated monographs. Instead, this chapter on Milan studies them relationally. Extending the Bourdieusian approach, we show that social (and some service) clubs in Italy’s economic capital city form a relatively coherent space of distinction. Differences between clubs relate to historical origins, social composition, organisational features, and modalities for membership. But they also pertain to the particular criteria used by each institution to describe and legitimate its social capital – i.e. the links connecting its members with each other – as well as to distinguish itself from its competitors. On a theoretical level, we argue that part of the efficiency of social capital stems from the symbolic categories deployed to endow it with meaning.

Esta serie de seminarios explora las relaciones entre el "lenguaje" y los "procesos de civilización" que investigamos en nuestro proyecto colectivo sobre "el proceso de la modernidad".
La historia social del lenguaje se encuentra en el centro de los procesos de cambio que percibimos y es un buen observatorio de las conexiones entre cambio social diferencial, construcción política, producción de élites, pautas civilizadoras, formas de distinción, transformaciones culturales selectivas y resistencias al cambio.

The article argues that Poland’s mainstream national historical narrative, at least as far as the last two centuries of history of the country is concerned, is full of ‘traumatic’ motives which are regularly used and developed in diverse current political and intellectual contexts. Polish history is imagined to a large extent as an endless chain of 200 years of suffering, caused, among other things, by occupations, wars, and exploitation, which are usually seen as not fully recognized in other countries, in particular in the West. The article attempts, first of all, to explain this specific nature of Poland’s historical identity by the privileged role of the intelligentsia, understood as a specific type of elite based on possession and control of cultural capital. It reconstructs the historical rise of the intelligentsia and its impact on the mainstream narrative in question, pointing to a selective choice of potential ‘traumas’ which are assigned a national status. They may be seen as tools to build positions in what can be called the Polish ‘field of power’, to use the notion coined by Pierre Bourdieu. The particular configuration and recent history of the field of power in Poland is reconstructed in order to explain different strategies of what can be called the social and political construction of historical traumas in Poland.

ABSTRACT: [Original text in German.] Having given a short review of the history of antiquarian book-selling and of letterpress the essay tries to reveal the double meaning of the book as a receptacle of information and a carrier of information whilst looking on the theories of Walter BENJAMIN. The "aura" of an old book may be described as a buying cause for bibliophiles. Regarding the model of capital transformation of Pierre BOURDIEU there are other reasons buying antiquarian books to be seen: the wish to acquire knowledge, and higher social prestige in an honest and also not so honest way with respect on better positioning of the own person within the social hierarchy. At least theoretically the not honest way acquiring social prestige is more easier affordable by persons of the ruling wealthy class. Models for the activities of antiquarian book-sellers are represented by the art-culture-system of James CLIFFORD and the cooperation-convention-modell of Howard Becker. The essay is provided with a comprehensive bibliography. *** Nach kurzem Abriss der Geschichte des Antiquariatshandels und des Buchdrucks eröffnet der Essay den Blick auf den Doppelcharakter des Buches als Informationsgefäß und als Informationsträger, der sich mit Hilfe der BENJAMINschen Auffassung vom Kunstwerk schärfer fassen lässt und die „Aura“ eines alten Buches als ein Kaufgrund für Bibliophile ausmacht. Zieht man das Kapitaltransformationsmodell von BOURDIEU heran, werden andere Kaufgründe von BuchsammlerInnen sichtbar: der Wunsch nach Wissenserwerb, nach erhöhtem Sozialprestige auf lauterem und auf unlauterem Weg zwecks besserer gesellschaftlicher Positionierung der eigenen Person. Der unlautere Weg kann theoretisch besehen am ehesten von VertreterInnen der kapitalkräftigen herrschenden Schicht eingeschlagen werden. Modelle für die Vorgänge im Antiquariatshandel liefern das Art-Culture-System von James CLIFFORD und das Kooperations-Konventionsmodell von Howard BECKER. Der Essay beinhaltet eine umfangreichere Bibliographie.

The article argues that Poland’s mainstream national historical narrative, at least as far as the last two centuries of history of the country is concerned, is full of ‘traumatic’ motives which are regularly used and developed in diverse current political and intellectual contexts. Polish history is imagined to a large extent as an endless chain of 200 years of suffering, caused, among other things, by occupations, wars and exploitation, which are usually seen as not fully recognized in other countries, in particular in the West. The article attempts first of all to explain this specific nature of Poland’s historical identity by the privileged role of the intelligentsia, understood as a specific type of elite based on possession and control of cultural capital. It reconstructs the historical rise of the intelligentsia and its impact on the mainstream narrative in question, pointing to a selective choice of potential ‘traumas’ which are assigned a national status. They may be seen as...

Rather than assessing its causal effect on educational attainment, the authors of this article aim to use the concept of cultural capital to define a huge, complex and interconnected collection of educational and school strategies adopted by students and families and to examine the way that these strategies are related to school inequalities. Data analysed come from the 2009 Italian survey for the Program for International Student Assessment run by the OECD. A Latent Class Regression Analysis has been applied to categorize four groups of individuals who share specific cultural habits, educational dispositions and choices, and social status; in short, the four groups differentiate individuals with a different endowment of the intangible asset, cultural capital. Moreover, using the socio-economic status as a covariate we link the latent class membership probability with individuals’ social standing and, consequently school choices

Too little attention has been paid to the school institutions intended to educate and socialize the children of the upper classes. Greece has a significant history of private educational institutions. Yet their history and role within the educational system and society has been consistently neglected. The study of elite private education and its relationship with the social reproduction of the upper and middle classes in Greece has been even more neglected. Through a study of elite private secondary schools, following the theoretical model of Pierre Bourdieu, we explored the relationship that the middle and upper social strata of Greek society maintain with specific private schools. In order to determine the above, we conducted a quantitative field survey at 13 well-known private schools in Athens, using a questionnaire. In these schools we find considerable over-representation of the social categories that are placed at the summit of the social hierarchy. A basic argument of our study was that different sections of the middle and upper classes develop different educational strategies to ensure their social reproduction and to increase their privileges. These different strategies adopted by traditional and more recently emerging social classes are reflected in the differences among the elite private schools as a ‘field’ and they distinguished the very top private schools from the less prestigious one. Also, we have found that sections of the Greek upper and middle class provide their offspring, through certain schools and activities, with an international capital which is a necessary condition for their future participation in international educational and professional markets. The study’s central research methodology included geometrical data analysis such as correspondence analysis.