Cultural capital refers to non-financial social possessions that promote social mobility outside of economic means. For example, this can include the education system.
In regards to subject choice, different genders may choose different subjects, for example girls are more likely than boys to excel in exam based subjects and therefore boys are more likely to choose heavy coursework subjects. In addition to this some subjects contain different set images in workbooks, for example boys are more likely to feature in science textbooks than girls. This may lead to peer pressure as different genders feel more under pressure to take stereotypical choices such as girls taking drama and boys taking mechanics.
The government has introduced some policies in order to create an educational market in the United Kingdom. These include acts such as the myth of parentocracy. This concept is associated with marketised education system and the ideology of parental choice over schools. Other acts include the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA) introduced by the conservative party of Margaret Thatcher which established the principle of marketization in education favoured by the New Right. Ofsted inspection reports are designed to inspect education providers or other children services, these reports help to rank schools and reports are often pupil documents available for parents to view in order to help parents choose the best schools for their children.
Some argue that ethnic difference in educational achievement is primarily the result of school factors. For example, Wright (1992) found that teachers perceived and treated minority ethnic pupils differently from white pupils. Afro-Carrabin boys were often expected to behave badly and they received a disproportionate amount of negative teacher attention. Other sociologists such as Gillborn and Youdell (2001) showed how schools used their teachers notions of ability to decide which pupils have the potential to achieve 5 A*-C grades at GCSE. They found that working class and black people are less likely to be seen as having ability and more likely to be placed in lower set and entered for lower tier GCSEs. This denies them the knowledge and opportunity needed to gain good grades and so widens the class gaps in achievement. Mac an