ABSTRACT
Focusing on the interplay of cultural capital, habitus and gender at the level of the household, this chapter highlights the important role of women in the formation, transmission and management of cultural capital within the family and across generations. It proposes, in particular, that women play pivotal roles in managing children’s exposure to art and the acquisition of key forms of cultural knowledge including the emotional and social vocabularies of appreciation. Gender differences are also evident when couples navigate the consumption of culture within the home, with the chapter suggesting that it is women who are more likely to adjust their cultural priorities to accommodate those of their partner. Not uncommonly, couples also consume cultural forms separately at home albeit often at the same time and in the same space. Enacted through the practices and priorities of everyday life and embedded in the internalised cultural schemas of the habitus, the chapter thus illuminates the potency of cultural capital and the gendered processes by which it is acquired and reproduced.
