“My Voice Matters”: High School Debaters’ Acquisition of Dominant and Adaptive Cultural Capital

Low-income, racial/ethnic minority youth in under-resourced schools have certain opportunities to acquire cultural capital that is valued in dominant institutional contexts. I use observational data from 6 months of debate practices and competitions with two teams in the Chicago Debate League, as well as interviews with 12 debaters and 2 coaches, to show that debate participation can contribute to participants’ acquisition of two forms of cultural capital. I argue that debaters demonstrate dominant cultural capital through demanding critical feedback and analyzing complex ideas. I further document how debaters develop “adaptive cultural capital,” or cultural capital that dominant institutions demand of them but that is not required of members of dominant social groups. Here, adaptive cultural capital is illustrated through debaters’ ability to face failure with resilience. These findings contribute to sociological understandings of how schools influence students’ acquisition of diverse forms of cultural capital.