Building Academic Capital - Get Academically Rich Slowly

Will Barratt, Ph.D.
Roi Et Rajabhat University

Capital, in social class language, is accumulated wealth. Marx wrote about Economic Capital, Bourdieu's ideas of economic, cultural, and social capital, (capital is accumulated wealth), began a discussion about different and specialized types of capital.

Spiritual Capital
There is a tradition of Gods weighing the soul in the afterlife and judging the accumulated spiritual wealth of the recently deceased.  The idea of karma is part of this tradition.  St. Peter is often depicted at the Christian pearly gates with a book containing the list of accumulated spiritual capital. 

Leadership Capital
In the leadership literature leadership capital is a hot topic. A basic web search for "leadership capital" turns up a surprisingly large number of pages.

Academic Capital
Multiple views of the form and function of Academic Capital are revealed in a web search.  Fundamental to Bourdieu's Forms of Capital is the idea that one form of capital can be turned into another.  Social Capital, who you know and who knows you, can be turned into Economic Capital through access to resources and opportunities.  Academic capital can be seen as a form of Cultural capital, and turned into jobs, money, or friends. 

Wikipedia authors makes a fine distinction between Academic and Educational capital.  However both are seen as primarily transformative - that is, a form of capital that can be transferred into money.  A little imagination lets you turn academic capital (or educational capital) into social capital.

Academic Capital in Your Pocket
Money you can put into your pocket, or bank, or investment portfolio.  Other forms of capital are abstractions.  (Yes, I realize that money is an abstraction, but the physical manifestation of money is a better example than the physical manifestation of Cultural Capital in the form of diplomas.)  Cultural Capital is knowledge and skills of a prestige culture.  Seen similarly, Academic Capital is knowledge and skills in an educational environment.  It is probably the case that Academic Capital is a subset of Cultural Capital in some hierarchical model of Capital, but that is not the point here.

Knowledge and skills are portable wealth.  Knowing the name of the capitol of Kansas is knowledge (declarative knowledge or "what"), knowing how to ride a bicycle is a skill (procedural knowledge or "how").  There is an array of literature on declarative/verbal knowledge and performance or process skill that is worth reading, and will build your Academic Capital.

What is the knowledge base and skill set that builds Academic Capital?  Here is my list of the needed skill set in Academic Capital, and yours may be different.  My list is largely skills because I believe more academic skills result in more knowledge.  On campus academic capital, knowledge and skills necessary for a academic success, is an interesting form of capital that many people don't seem to understand.  Knowing how to learn is a skill set with great value.

• Reading
• Listening
• Writing
• Speaking
• Presenting
• Studying
• Critical Thinking
• Surface learning and deep learning
• Making associations between what you already know and the new material in a class

I am amazed that students fail to connect material, knowledge and skills, learned in one class to content and process in another class. Building academic capital, knowledge and skills, requires connecting and reconnecting knowledge and skills learned in multiple places.  Academic knowledge is interrelated in complex networks of knowledge and skill.  For example, population growth is connected to animal habitat, access to birth control is connected to crime rates, and so on.  A basic investment strategy is that money builds more money.  Knowledge and skill, through associations and interconnections, builds more knowledge and skill.

Every campus has professionals who will help you build all of these skills.  Serious students, those who seek to build more academic (cultural) capital, work on building these skills so that this can all be transformed into economic (money) capital. 

Data source - being a teacher for a lot of years.

tl;dr learn to study, read, write well, and make connections, then do it a lot.

Social Class and the Experience Economy - Campus Edition

Will Barratt, Ph.D.
Roi Et Rajabhat University

Seeing social class is complicated.
Performing and displaying social class is complicated.

Some of class is visible, like positional goods, brand name objects, and obviously labeled fashion.
Some of social class is auditory, like having a prestige accent.
Some of social class is scent based, like having having the upscale perfume.
Some of social class is invisible, intangible, ephemeral, like experiences.

The material economy, the world of stuff, tangibles, things you can see or touch or smell, plays a big part in social class.  The experience economy, the world of experience, intangibles, ephemeral passing experiences, plays an equally big, and different, role in the performance and demonstration of social class.  The nature of experience is ephemeral, while the nature of material is, well, material.

I am going to assume here that people who wear obviously, or even subtly, labeled fashion wish to demonstrate their social status through the display of those fashion labels.  Fashion labels are part of the performance of social class.  Please keep in mind that there are many ways to perform social class, and I am only using labeled fashion here as a way to make sense of class performance in the experience economy. How do we translate the experience into the material so that others can see what we have done?  Merchandise.

Like material things, experiences are ranked by social class.  For example, theme parks are social class ranked. Vacation destinations are social class ranked.  Movies are social class ranked.  Live theater is social class ranked. Travel destinations are social class ranked.  Camping and glamping are social class ranked.

Fraternities and sororities, and student organizations in general, are social class ranked.  Transforming the experience of Greek Life membership into the visible world means wearing your letters and public displays of membership.  Experiences in student life are marked with shirts, or other things commemorating the event.  Like the concert goer who buys the concert shirt, the student on campus gets the participation trophy of a shirt, or a mug, or a whatever is being used to commemorate the event.  A material reminder of the experience, or a trophy for display.  Think for a moment about post-season college sports and the display of fanatic loyalty through branded wearables.

Any sensible college provides prospective students with branded gear.  A material link to the experience.  But this is not true for all colleges - taking the college tour for free stuff is discouraged at highly selective campuses, you need to buy your own Harvard hoodie.  On the third hand, the concept of "commitment and consistency" (Cialdini, The Psychology of Influence and Persuasion, 1984) plays into the college manipulating the student into wearing branded gear in order to foster commitment.   On the fourth hand, perhaps the purpose of any experience memento is to show off participation in the experience and to reinforce membership in the social class reflected in that experience.

Alternative forms of prestige experiences include suitable material evidence for public display.  Alternative Spring Break, volunteerism, Habitat for Humanity, the Student Investment Club, Campus Green groups, and a myriad other campus activities of all types provide wearable evidence of experiences.

Class rings anyone?  Campus branded bumper stickers for Mom and Dad?  Campus branded credit cards for alumni?

tl;dr  wear stuff to show off your prestige experiences