Volume 2, Issue 4 p. 1355-1371

Accessing Higher Education: The Influence of Cultural and Social Capital on University Choice

Rachel Brooks

Rachel Brooks

Department of Political, International and Policy Studies, University of Surrey

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 21 July 2008
Citations: 24

Abstract

Over recent years, sociologists of education have paid increasing attention to the higher education sector. They have highlighted the ways in which, despite the significant expansion in the number of university places available in many countries across the world, access to and choices about higher education continue to be strongly influenced by social class. This article provides an overview of recent literature in this field and explores how scholars have tended to explain this influence by drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and cultural and social capital.