The application of cultural and social capital: a study of the 25th year reunion entries of prep school and public school graduates of Yale College

This article compares the post-college experiences of graduates of elite prep schools, non-elite prep schools and public schools who attended Yale College in the early 1960s. Drawing on previous research, and on Bourdieu's theory of social reproduction, it was hypothesized that Yale graduates who had attended public secondary schools would be more likely than Yale graduates who had attended prep schools to accumulate what Bourdieu calls cultural capital, but that Yale graduates who had attended prep schools would be more likely than their public school counterparts to accumulate what Bourdieu calls social capital. A study of the life experiences of the Yale College class of 1963 during the 25 years after their college graduation supported this general expectation. There was also support for a series of more specific expectations about post-graduate educational achievement, occupational choices, and behavioral indices of loyalty to Yale.