Universal Journal of Educational Research Vol. 4(11), pp. 2627 - 2635
DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2016.041116
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The Impact of Cultural Capital on Secondary Student's Performance in Brazil

Bernardo Caprara ^1,2,*
1 Department of Social Sciences, Federal University of Fronteira Sul, Brazil
² Department of Sociology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

ABSTRACT

The main goal of this study is to verify the effects of cultural capital on students' performance in an official test applied by the Brazilian government, as part of the National Assessment of Basic Education (Saeb). The data set used is from 2003 and involves 52.434 students. The standard test is applied every two years in the fields of mathematics and languages. A questionnaire is applied along with the test in order to measure the student's characteristics as well as their families' profile. The question of this research is: what is the impact of cultural capital on student's performance in the Saeb test? The theoretical approach is based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. As contributions of Brazilian scholars the study includes the ideas of Nelson Silva and Carlos Hasenbalg and Carlos Ribeiro. The model of study considered the students' grades in the Saeb test as the dependent variable and the cultural capital as the main independent variable. The descriptive analysis was used as well as regression models in order to obtain the effect of the independent variables over the dependent one. The preliminary and main results show that there is significant association between levels of cultural capital and student's performance in the Saeb test. Specifically, there is a significant and positive correlation between parents' education, computer ownership, access to internet and newspaper reading with the performance in the Saeb test.

KEYWORDS
Cultural Capital, Inequalities, Students' Performance, Sociology of Education

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Bernardo Caprara , "The Impact of Cultural Capital on Secondary Student's Performance in Brazil," Universal Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 4, No. 11, pp. 2627 - 2635, 2016. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2016.041116.

(b). APA Format:
Bernardo Caprara (2016). The Impact of Cultural Capital on Secondary Student's Performance in Brazil. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 4(11), 2627 - 2635. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2016.041116.