Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction

The specific role of the sociology of education is assumed once it has established itself as the science of the relations between cultural reproduction and social reproduction. This occurs when it endeavours to determine the contribution made by the educational system to the reproduction of the structure of power relationships and symbolic relationships between classes, by contributing to the reproduction of the structure of the distribution of cultural capital among these classes. The transmission from generation to generation of accumulated information, classical theories tend to dissociate the function of cultural reproduction proper to all educational systems from their function of social reproduction. The greater reliability of the survey carried out by the Centre of European Sociology of the European museum public is due to the fact that it was based upon the degree of effective practice and not on the statements of those being questioned.