“Knowledge is power”: MBA study program in Bourdieu’s perspective of capitals
Vol.25,No.1(2015)
Based on a one-year ethnographic research conducted at the private higher education institution, this empirical study aims to analyse the MBA study program from the perspective of reproduction of social differences. The first part of the article presents the theoretical background of the study, Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural, economic, symbolic and social capital and his perspective on educational institutions as a means of reproducing social differences. After introducing the basic features of the school under the study, the third, analytical part describes the manifest aims of the program that consist in reinforcement of cultural and economic capital. Besides these goals to provide students with knowledge for promoting their career opportunities and business success, the mechanisms builing of students’ symbolic and social capital are depicted. As the text shows, besides its manifest aims, the MBA program functions as a space for the conversion of economic capital into symbolic and social capital. Both of which then increase economic capital and thus enable to reproduce and reinforce students’ social positions.
MBA; Bourdieu; social reproduction; symbolic capital; social capital; economic; capital; cultural capital
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