[5] Likewise, processes of schooling in modern societies are among the main mechanisms of cultural reproduction, and do not operate solely through what is taught in courses of formal instruction.
This interaction between individuals, which results in the transfer of accepted cultural norms, values, and information, is accomplished through a process known as socialisation.
For example, there may be little if any empirical evidence supporting a choice of driving in one lane or another, yet with each new generation, the accepted norm of that individual's culture is reinforced and perpetuated.
[1][2] Bourdieu's theories recognizably build upon the conjectures of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Georges Canguilhem, Karl Marx, Gaston Bachelard, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Norbert Elias, among others.
Beginning to study socialisation and how dominant culture and certain norms and traditions affected many social relations, Bourdieu's ideas were especially similar to those of Louis Althusser's notion of Ideological State Apparatuses, which had emerged around the same time.
[5] High social class, familiarity with bourgeois culture, and educational credentials determined one's life chances.
"[10] Bourdieu also pioneered many procedural frameworks and terminologies, emphasising the role of practice and embodiment in social dynamics.
[2][11] Bourdieu theorizes that what is taught to younger generations is dependent on the varying degrees of social, economic, and cultural capital.
Therefore, schools in capitalist societies require a method of stratification, and often choose to do so in a way in which the dominant culture will not lose its hegemony.
According to Alice Sullivan (2001), the theory of cultural reproduction entails three fundamental propositions:[13] There is no clear consensus as to the exact role of education within cultural reproduction; and further to what degree, if any, this system either encourages or discourages topics such as social stratification, resource inequality, and discrepancies in access to opportunities.
It is believed, however, that the primary means in which education determines an individual's social status, class, values, and hierarchy, is through the distribution of cultural capital.
The concept of education as an agent of cultural reproduction is argued to be less directly explained by the material and a subject taught, but rather more so through what is known as the hidden curriculum.
One's ability to successfully complete the process of educational attainment strongly correlates to the capacity to realise adequate pay, occupational prestige, social status, etc.
This forms the assumption that, regardless of the trade an individual participates in, they will all need a similar set of social skills for their day-to-day interactions.
With this harsh divide between individuals who do and do not complete the process of formal education, social stratification and inequality between the two groups emerges.