One of the most important issues in sociology concerns the creation and reproduction of stratification systems. In recent years, social scientists have become increasingly interested in studying how culture and education contribute to social reproduction. While some scholars have focused on culturally-based power and on the contribution of the new middle class to the reproduction of capitalism (Abercrombie and Urry 1983; Burris 1980; Gouldner 1979), others examine how culture, broadly defined, mediates both social reproduction and power relations. This second group focuses on the politics of life-style (Goffman 1951), status politics (Gusfield 1963; Lipset and Raab 1970; Marshall forthcoming), and hegemony (Hall et al. 1980). The notion of cultural capital has rapidly become an important conceptual tool shared by American researchers working on this cluster of related isses.

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