Cultural Consumption and Social Stratification

Cultural consumption encompasses the practices through which individuals and groups engage with artistic, heritage and popular forms—ranging from fine art and classical music to streaming media and community festivals. These practices both reflect and reproduce social hierarchies by signalling access to resources, education and social networks. Historically, elites deployed exclusive tastes in highbrow domains to demarcate their status, while popular cultural forms were often valorised by less privileged groups. In recent decades, this dichotomy has given way to more complex configurations: some social groups exhibit “omnivorous” patterns of taste, mixing elite and mass forms, while new modes of distinction emphasise authenticity, everyday participation and digital engagement alongside traditional markers of status. Underlying these shifts are enduring inequalities in economic and cultural capital, which shape opportunities for participation and influence the symbolic value attributed to different forms of culture. The global expansion of cultural industries and the rise of digital technologies have further transformed access and taste formation, yet have not fundamentally altered the stratified distribution of cultural engagement. Current research thus interrogates the interplay between individual dispositions, institutional structures and material conditions to explain how cultural practices both mirror and reinforce social stratification, with implications for policy, education and social inclusion.

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Cultural Consumption and Social Stratification publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in cultural consumption and social stratification across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Cultural capital: Non-economic assets such as education, tastes and credentials that enable social mobility and distinction.

Social stratification: The hierarchical arrangement of individuals and groups based on factors like wealth, prestige and power.

Cultural omnivorousness: The consumption of a wide range of cultural forms, spanning both elite and popular domains.

Symbolic distinction: The process by which social groups use cultural practices to signal status and maintain boundaries.

References

1. From Aristocratic to Ordinary: Shifting Modes of Elite Distinction. American Sociological Review (2020).
2. What Does it Mean to be a Cultural Omnivore? Conflicting Visions of Omnivorousness in Empirical Research. Sociological Research Online (2021).
3. Cultural consumption and Covid-19: evidence from the Taking Part and COVID-19 Cultural Participation Monitor surveys. Leisure Studies (2022).