Riff capital
Towards a new theory of value among popular music learners
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22434394 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kayla Rush (0000-0002-1236-9986, Bon Secours Mary Immaculate Hospital, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Popular Music Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2397-6721 • E-ISSN: 2397-673X |
| Publisher | Intellect (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1386/jpme_00182_1 |
| OpenAlex | W7168122575 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
This article introduces and develops the theoretical concept of riff capital. It posits riff capital as a specific form of cultural capital that circulates among children and young people learning popular music, transmitted within educational spaces but largely separate from adult educators and formal and non-formal pedagogical processes. Grounded in an ethnographic case study of a private-sector popular music education organization in Dublin, Ireland, this article defines riff capital vis-à-vis Bourdieu’s cultural capital – an influential sociological concept that describes the largely invisible accumulation of cultural skills and knowledge, which is enabled by access to economic capital (i.e. money), but whose links to economic capital are often obscured. This article argues that riff capital is classed, gendered and racialized, examining the ways in which inequalities in class, gender, race, ethnicity and migrant background – and their complex intersections – interact with and shape the workings of riff capital accumulation, circulation and deployment.
Cultural capital · Economic capital · Ethnic group · Ethnography · Social reproduction · Diverse Music Education Insights · Music History and Culture · Social and Cultural Dynamics
Is “Watching and Copying” the New “Listening and Copying”
A study of students’ perceptions of parental influence on students’ musical instrument learning in Beijing, China
Music studies as cultural capital accumulation and its impact on music genre preferences
I. Exposing the Gendered Discourse of Music Education
Difficult but Sensitive
Mobilising capitals? Migrant children's negotiation of their everyday lives in school
Gender Differences of Popular Music Production in Secondary Schools
An Overdue Theoretical Discourse
Mapping the Margins
Riff Culture
Riffs, Repetition, and Theories of Globalization
Children, Childhood and Social Capital
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |