Perspectives of Social Stratification and Reproduction of Cultural Capital Forms: Problems of the past 20 years
Summary
Aghasi Z. Tadevosyan
The social structure of the population of Yerevan significantly changed in the years of independence. Owing to the reforms of the 1990’s main parts of the population of Yerevan unexpectedly fell in to poverty. Poverty influenced urban processes in a very negative way. The range and diversity of people’s speres of activity decreased critically. As a result, the main part of the population of the city was alienated from the Hansition processes. Poverty especially limited their opportunities of participation and investment in the exchange processes and the transformation of their capacities into various forms of financial, cultural and social capital. That influenced the reproduction of the cultural capital of vulnerable strata negatively, decreasing their chances to overcome poverty and threatening with the transformation of poverty into a self-reproductive phenomenon. The policy of social transfers is not sufficient for the prevention of such a perspective. First of all, investments are needed for cultural capital’s quality improvement and its dynamic reproduction.