Building Cultural Capital: Recommendations for the Movement

Build Cultural Capital:

Although cultural capital is usually referred to as an individual asset that is developed by individuals (as is social capital), the collective cultural capital of many individuals within the movement will be influential and will increase the amount of cultural influence and symbolic power held by the movement itself. Educating the movement members and ensuring access to cultural resources might not be a great difficulty for the movement considering it is an education movement. What might be an important focus though is on expanding the forms of culture that movement members have knowledge of and proficiency in. Art and Culture have a significant influence on public discourse. The more opportunities for the development of cultural artifacts which promote sustainability education the better...


1. Educate members on contemporary cultural forms and the power of these forms to influence public opinion and discourse (such as advertising, formal education, popular music, fashion, celebrities etc)

2. Encourage the framing of education as cultural capital in the public discourse which could be one of the ways to increase the relevance and value of sustainability education

3. Focusing specifically on the cultural capital accrued from an education with a focus on sustainability will also increase the respect this form of education receives (i.e., it is the education of the future, provides skill sets that our new economy requires etc)

4. Educate and encourage movement members to become proficient in and able to produce art and cultural artifacts such as music, paintings, films, books, magazines, radio shows etc to increase the number of cultural artifacts being produced with the frame of sustainability education