Elite Cultural Activity Participation and Social Status: The U.S. Case.

There are two dominant perspectives in regard to the association patterns between cultural taste, activity, and social stratification: the elite culture exclusion perspective and the inclusion of cultural taste argument. Recent research suggests a trend towards the ¡°omnivorousness¡± among high status individuals, discrediting theories of elite culture. However, this line of inquiry ignores the significance of cultural activity participation for the sake of cultural taste. This paper uses 1993 General Social Survey to assess the relationship between individuals¡¯ social status and their participation in one elite cultural form: classical music/opera concerts. Logistic regression results show that education, occupational prestige, and income are strongly associated with this form of cultural consumption, even after controlling for the effect of music taste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]