Cultural Capital and Educational Outcomes in Croatia: A Contextual Approach

This paper examines the relationship between different types of cultural capital and educational outcomes. The authors operationalised highbrow cultural capital, two additional formal competencies from CNFC, and parental cultural capital, in order to ascertain whether these cultural capital types are associated with secondary school enrolment and school grades. Data was collected by the authors in a survey that was conducted in five Croatian secondary schools. The results broadly show that highbrow cultural capital is connected with both measured educational outcomes. The authors conclude that the dominant interpretation of cultural capital still has its merits and argue for a broader contextual approach to cultural capital in future research.