The Relationship between Objectified Cultural Capital and Intergenerational Social Mobility (A Case Study of Citizens of 30-54 Years of Age in the City of Gorgan, Iran)

Social mobility indicates the dynamic aspect of the society and indicates the efforts and activities of every individual, group and institution in changing their social status, generally from lower to upper levels in society. The purpose of this article is to investigate the effect of objectified cultural capital on intergenerational social mobility in Gorgan city, Iran. The theoretical ground for this article is based on the cultural theory of Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu underscores the cultural roles such as cultural capital in the success and failure of the agents in work. According to the issues mentioned above, the questions of this study are as follows: 1) what kind of relationship is there between objectified cultural capital and social mobility level of the citizens in Gorgan? 2) What kind of effect does gender role have on social mobility level of citizens in Gorgan? 3) What is the status of horizontal, descending and ascending social mobility in Gorgan? In this article efforts and scientific studies were made to answer the questions raised above.
Theoretical Framework: The transition of an individual from one social status to another is called “social mobility”. The transition of an individual from a social status to a similar one is called “horizontal mobility”. The transition from one stratum to another, whether it is toward the upper or lower level is “vertical mobility”. There are two approaches based on the classic and modern theories of social strata and mobility. 1) Those who evaluate the various strata within the framework of social strata by defining their occupations.Sociologists who think status cannot be transformed to a particular stratum do not regard occupation as the only index for strata. Bourdieu identifies three types of cultural capital in his book The Forms of Cultural Capital: 1) Embodied cultural capital such as memory, experiential, behavioral and acquired skills are considered as physical and individual capitals. 2) Objectified cultural capital includes cultural and media objects which in fact are parts of one’s properties as well as one’s objectified abilities such as works of art and writing. 3) Institutionalized cultural capital suggests educational degrees. Academic proficiency brings with it symbolic and economic benefits such as a high salary and a high profile job. Professional degrees are examples of institutional capital.
This article is a survey study in terms of its method. In order to get the needed information, in-depth interview and questionnaire are used. To determine the content validity, content validity ratio (CVR) technique is used. After designing the questionnaire and pilot study among 30 participants, the reliability level of questions was calculated (82%) by Cronbach’s alpha. The unit of analysis is the respondent individual in this study. The statistical population includes all the men and women of 30 to 54 years of age in Gorgan, which according to the 2011 census was equal to 146238 people. The sample size was 384 people according to the Cochran’s sample size formula. To choose the samples, random multistage sampling was used.
Out of 384 participants in this study, 50.3 percent were men and 49.7 were women. In terms of group age, 20.3 percent were 30 to 34 years of age, 20.1 percent were 35 to 39 years of age, 19.8 percent were 45 to 49 years of age and 20.1 percent were 50 to 54 years of age and the average age was 42.3. The result of the Pearson Coefficient Correlation indicated that with 0.081 and with 0.119 level of significance, the research hypothesis 1 that there is a significant relationship between the objectified cultural capital and intergenerational social mobility of citizens in Gorgan is thus found: with 95 percent of confidence coefficient, the research hypothesis is rejected and the null hypothesis, that there is no relationship between the objectified cultural capital and intergenerational social mobility, is proved. According to the amount of the calculated t(2.638) and the level of significance (0.009), we can say that the research hypothesis (H1), that the gender of participants causes difference in the level of intergenerational social mobility,is proved with the confidence coefficient of more than 95 %; and the null hypothesis (H0), that the participants’ gender does not cause any difference in the level of intergenerational social mobility, is rejected.
Conclusion and Suggestions for Further Research: The results of the research showed that there is no relationship between the objectified cultural capital and the social mobility in Gorgan. According to the calculated mean, the level of intergenerational social mobility of men being equal to 3.050 out of 5 and that of women being 2.268 out of 5, we can conclude that men’s level of intergenerational social mobility was more than that of women’s. Of the total participants’ social mobility level, 8.6 percent was made up by descending intergenerational social mobility, 24 percent was made up by the horizontal intergenerational social mobility and 67.4 percent was made up by the ascending intergenerational social mobility.