What is cultural capital?

12 Apr

We all carry a kind of currency with us that we acquire and spend throughout our lives. This currency, let’s call it CultureCoin for now, is accumulated through the ways in which we interact with the people and world around us, as well as our experiences in education, the workplace and our wider society. Some people will have large amounts of CultureCoin because they attend the top schools, go on to get high level executive jobs and interact with large intersections of society through travel and other cultural activities such as going to the theatre or playing team sports. Others will have a smaller pot of CultureCoin.

However much CultureCoin a person has, they can spend it during those same interactions through which they acquired it in the first place. In fact, it isn’t a choice. It’s mandatory to pay with CultureCoin when undertaking any kind of social or cultural interaction including when shopping, completing application forms and eating in a restaurant. The more CultureCoin a person has to spend, the more they will get out of these interactions. So, really, cultural capital can be thought of as what we know about the world. Not in the sense of pure facts, but in the way that the systems that govern our lives actually work.

Still with me? OK. So, let’s take this a step further. CultureCoin is country specific. That means that if I live in country A, I will acquire and spend CultureCoinA. If I lived in country B, I would acquire and spend CultureCoinB and so on. Makes sense. However, there is a frustrating caveat to this. Some countries are very different to one another and some are only slightly different. This means that in fact, we can think of certain groups of countries as having similar forms of CultureCoin. If we take the UK as an example, we might say that people in England hold CultureCoinA1 and people in Scotland hold CultureCoinA2. It means that I can spend my CultureCoin with relative ease in both places and still get a good return for my currency.

So, what happens if I live in country F and I hold CultureCoinF, but I want to emigrate to country A where they only accept CultureCoinA? Well, then we must get involved in CultureCoin exchange and here we face another problem. The exchange rate for CultureCoin is not one for one. In fact, for each CultureCoinA, I would need to hand over three CultureCoinF. The maddening upshot of this is that if I started with 18 CultureCoinF, I only have 6 CultureCoinA when the exchange is finished. That means that I have far less CultureCoin to spend in my new country than when I arrived and therefore, I will get far less return on my interactions in education, the workplace and wider society as a result.

If we know that CultureCoin can be acquired through our social interactions, then it logically follows that the longer I spend in country A, then the more CultureCoinA I will have. However, there is another snag. The social interactions that would yield the greatest amount of CultureCoinA also cost the most. So, with my tiny amount of CultureCoinA, I can only afford to interact with education, workplaces and wider society that is cheaper and, in turn, returns smaller amounts. So how on earth do I acquire more CultureCoinA so that I can live the life I thought I would have in country A? Well, maybe I know someone who is prepared to give me a discount on something that I wouldn’t usually be able to afford (this is called social capital and is a similar, but different matter). Maybe I had so much CultureCoinF to start with that the relative loss on exchange doesn’t impact me so much. Or maybe I will just never acquire the amount of CultureCoinA that I thought I would.

This situation may sound hypothetical and even a little farfetched, but it is rooted in sound sociological literature and is the experience of many of our international nurses here in the UK. Cultural capital matters because in allows people to interact in the world in a way that is meaningful for them as well as enabling them to achieve their highest potential. For example, we know that many nurses from countries such as India, the Philippines and Nigeria, choose to come to the UK in order to access and complete further education. But many don’t go on to do that. Why? As with many societal phenomena, it’s complicated but we can look at it as a process.

Let’s start at the university level in the classroom and assume that our international nurse has enrolled onto the course they want. The style of teaching in the UK may well be very different to what the nurse has experienced in their own country. The language is the same, but the use of language is different. The expectations are different. The interactions with the teacher are different.

Let’s go back a step. In order to get onto the course, the nurse had to complete an application form. The form asked for evidence of studies that don’t exist in the nurses home country and experiences that aren’t available to them. The international nurse has a bachelors degree in their home country, but this isn’t recognised in the UK sytem and the nurse is told they only have the equivalent of a diploma.

Let’s go back another step. In order to be allowed to apply for the course, the nurse would have had to apply for funding and study leave where they are employed. But this is yet more complicated paperwork that involves fulfilling the stipulations set out by the nurses workplaces such as length of employment, how the nurse intends to ustilise the learning in practice and getting the support of their manager who has to sign the form.

Back another step. In order to be ready to apply for study leave, the nurse has to know that this is an option and has to have be deemed competent and able to apply for further education. This relies on the nurse impressing their manager and colleagues with their clinical performance, but nursing in the UK is really different to their home country. Patients have different expectations, the social systems are confusing and some of the clinical duties that have to be undertaken on a day to day basis don’t even exist in the nurses home country.

Back one more step. To be able to work as a nurse in the UK, the international nurse must register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. This involves having to send another application form with evidence of sponsorship from a UK employer, sitting a series of practical examinations to prove they can safely give medicines, change dressings and talk to people and passing an English language test at a level that is equivalent to degree level English. Even if you have been educated in English your whole life. All of these gates are challenging to go through when you are overseas and unfamiliar with this system or anything that looks remotely like it.

With this is mind, how can we ensure that our nurses have the opportunity to excel, especially given our increasingly globalised and internationally mobile workforce? We need to develop not multiculturalism, but multi-currency institutions. The difference between these two is significant. Multiculturalism can be measured from the outside and because of this, it can easily be argued that we have achieved it within healthcare in the UK, particularly in nursing. Our workforce looks diverse. In fact, in London, 34% of our nurses are trained internationally and many hospitals have practitioners from 50 or more nations. Multiculturalism sorted? However, if country A forces everyone to use CultureCoin A, then actually all we have achieved is homogenisation. A population who looks different on the outside but are expected to behave the same. Multi-currency institutions recognise that outward appearances only tell a small part of the story. True value in a multinational, multicultural workforce comes from accepting and valuing the currencies that people carry with them. Not because it allows us to celebrate our tolerance. No. This is self-serving. Truly valuing multi-currencies enables real growth, real understanding, and real productivity because it recognises that there are many ways to do something, many ways to interpret something and many ways to engage with something without assuming that one way is superior to any other. The value is in genuine diversity of perspective, not in hierarchy or homogenisation.

What is cultural capital?

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