The Construct Validation of a Questionnaire of Social and Cultural Capital

Abstract

The present study was conducted to construct and validate a questionnaire of social and cultural capital in the foreign language context of Iran. To this end, a questionnaire was designed by picking up the most frequently-used indicators of social and cultural capital. The Factorability of the intercorrelation matrix was measured by two tests: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity. The results obtained from the two tests revealed that the factor model was appropriate. To validate the questionnaire, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed. The application of the Principle Component Analysis to the participants' responses resulted in 14 extracted factors accounting for 69% of the variance. The results obtained from the Scree Test indicated that a five-factor solution might provide a more parsimonious grouping of the items in the questionnaire. The rotated component matrix indicated the variables loaded on each factor so that the researchers came up with the new factors, i.e., social competence, social solidarity, literacy, cultural competence, and extraversion. Finally, statistical results were discussed and suggestions were made for future research.

Exploring the Relationship between Willingness to Communicate in English, and Social/Cultural Capital among Iranian Undergraduate English Majors

“…Cultural competence, which is a component of cultural capital, is the label for the factors measuring the extent to which individuals enjoy listening to classical music, visit museums, theaters, or attend concerts, know famous music composers, take art or music classes outside school and their proficiency in using language (Pishghadam, Noghani, & Zabihi, 2011). Our findings suggest that "cultural competence" is a good predictor of L2WTC.…”

Variable Structure of Cultural Capital and Implications for Multicultural Counseling

“…This study used the sample from the last follow‐up round of data collection from the year 2000 (F4), which included parental and high school variables from 1992, high school and college variables from 1994, and college variables from 2000. Questions related to the construct of cultural capital were selected from F2, F3, and F4 that shared similarities with questions listed in both the Social and Cultural Capital Questionnaire and the Community College Student Survey of Engagement (Center for Community College Student Engagement, ; Pishghadam et al, ). For example, a Social and Cultural Capital questionnaire item was “I usually talk about job/education with family,” the corresponding NELS item was “Parent talked to teen in general about schools.” Likewise, a Community College Student Survey of Engagement item was “Which of the following have you done, are doing, or do you plan to do while attending this college?” with the options of “developmental/remedial reading course” and “developmental/remedial writing course” as responses.…”

Does It Pay off? The Effect of Social and Cultural Capital on Learners’ Language Learning Strategies

“…However, Bourdieu (1977Bourdieu ( , 1986 attempts to expand the category of capital to something more than just the economic and to identify culture and social variables as other forms of capital. In the analysis of the investigations done by Bourdieu (1977Bourdieu ( , 1986; Bourdieu andJohnson, (1993) Bourdieu, Passeron, andMartin (1996),cited in Pishghadam, Noghani, and Zabihi (2011) conclude that capital is not only economic but is also social and cultural. In other words, like economic capital, the higher distribution of cultural and social capital among a particular social class can be a source of power defining the chances of profit in a given field.…”

“…According to Pishghadam et al (2011) this field of investigation deals with five sociocultural variables. The first is the learners' level of parental involvement with their activities-social competence.…”

“…The questionnaire is constructed by Pishghadam et al (2011) and includes five subscales of Social Competence, Social Solidarity, Literacy, Cultural Competence, and Extraversion(all International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2012 together consisting of 42 items), with Social Capital consisting of social competence (15 items), social solidarity (11items), and extraversion (3 items) and Cultural Capital consisting of literacy (6 items) and cultural competence(7 items).…”