An Introduction to the Methodological Approach of Pierre Bourdieu to Cultural Capital

This article is about the methodology employed by Pierre Bourdieu in the field of cultural capital. The cultural capital is the culture that functions similar to capital from a social point of view. The primary concern of Bourdieu was to identify a capital، the primary function of which was to legitimate domination through symbolic violence، i. e. the ability to sustain relations of domination. The main concern of the author in choosing this subject was the emphasis on applying qualitative methods in the field of social sciences research in Iran، as if the only valid research is the one that uses complicated inferential statistics. Les Hertiers (1964)، Distinction (1979) and Misere du Monde (1993) are three major works by Bourdieu in the field of cultural capital that are analyzed in this study from a methodological point of view، using documentary method. The findings indicate that، in these studies، Bourdieu has not limited himself to theoretical explanations. Rather، he has employed quantitative and qualitative methods، referred to tangible researches، and used specific examples and illustrations in his study of cultural capital. The most prominent feature of his method is known as constructivist structuralism، in which the role of the agents، on the one hand، and the social structures، on the other، are challenged