Cultural Reproduction in Indonesia’s Higher Education System

This article is intended to examine how Indonesia’s higher education system reproduces cultural capital by enabling groups of people to maintain their class privileges, applying Bourdieu’s theory of cultural reproduction. In other words, it tries to locate Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory in the context of Indonesia’s higher education.

Some argue that state policy can eliminate inequality of access to higher education in Indonesia. This article argues that the internal logic of Indonesia’s educational system, especially its selection mechanism, has facilitated to ensures the perpetuation of class privileges, rather than eliminates inequality.

This argument is supported by the fact that previous mass higher education failed to attenuate inequality of access to higher education. The current shift to a system that emphasizes market orientation has not also decreased inequality.

Higher education system is selected to be the focus because it is where class destination will be potentially determined through a ‘legitimized’ competition. Those who manage to enter and complete higher education are assumed to be more likely to have better life chances.

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