Music studies as cultural capital accumulation and its impact on music genre preferences

Abstract

Music preferences have been shown to be determined by a diversity of factors such as cognitive, emotional, cultural, or experiential. Having studied music is also a factor that has been considered from a musicology standpoint and is linked to the accumulation of cultural capital, as analyzed in cultural economics, arts management, and the sociology of culture. Research on how music studies influence music genre preferences shed light on the role that music education plays in the stock of cultural capital individuals hold. To do so, an exploratory empirical survey was undertaken using self-administered questionnaires targeted to a sample of 231 students. Findings, after performing multivariate analysis, showed that knowledge or familiarity plays an important role in music genre preferences. Specifically, having studied music affects the choice of music genres. These results contribute to the literature on music preferences, and specifically on their determinants, establishing the connection of music education with the accumulation of cultural capital and its influence on the formation of music genre preferences.