Social Inequality and Cultural Capital in the Pisa 2000-E Study - A Latent Class Analysis

On the background of Bourdieu's reproduction theory in this contribution a person-centered typology of cultural capital is developed with data of the PISA 2000-E study The statistical means for the construction of this typology is the Latent Class Analysis (LCA). Compared to the traditional, deterministic Cluster Analysis the LA has some advantages: it is model-based, considers all interactions of the variables and allows for measurement errors. As a result it can be shown that the typology as a intervening variable is dependent on dimensions of social inequality and has an own effect on the test score of reading literacy. The strength of dependency varies between types of schools: at the elementary school cultural capital differentiates the reading literacy much stronger than at the grammar school (gymnasium).