Development and validation of the Scale of Cultural Capital

Cultural capital refers to the knowledge and use of cultural codes that are relevant in the community wherein people live. A valid scale to measure all the dimensions of cultural capital is not available. In this paper, exploratory, confirmatory, and multigroup confirmatory factor analyses were performed using independent samples of adults to select the best items and to investigate their factorial structure and invariance across sex and occupation prestige. We found three interrelated factors made up of 14 items: participating in groups and associations, consuming cultural events, and carrying out activities requiring expertise or creativity. This three-factor model exhibited partial factor mean invariance for sex and partial factor variance/covariance invariance for occupational prestige and convergent/divergent validity for measures of bonding and bridging social capital. The Scale of Cultural Capital is a useful tool for assessing the cultural capital in experimental and professional settings and for developing an evidence-based theoretical model.