Psychometric Properties of the Internalized Cultural Capital Scale in Chilean University Students: Factorial and Validity Evidence

Internalized cultural capital refers to dispositions and evaluative schemas incorporated through socialization, constituting a symbolic substrate difficult to measure empirically. Valid instruments for this construct in higher education remain scarce in Latin America. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Internalized Cultural Capital Scale (Díaz Herrera et al., 2020) in Chilean university students. A sample of 616 undergraduates (58.8% women; M age = 22.58, SD = 4.37) was split into two subsamples (n = 308 each) for exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. EFA on polychoric correlations replicated the five-factor structure (KMO = 0.844), explaining 68.1% of variance. CFA (WLSMV) revealed an identification problem in the two-indicator Family Projection factor. A four-factor model showed adequate fit (CFI = .958; TLI = .948; RMSEA = .106; SRMR = .082). Three dimensions showed good reliability (ordinal α: .79–.94; ω: .748–.918; AVE: .511–.677). The total score correlated negatively with socioeconomic self-placement (ρ = −.250; p < .001) but overlapped substantially with the Gender Role Attitudes Scale (ρ = −.654; p < .001), not supporting discriminant validity. Women scored significantly higher than men on three dimensions. These findings inform instrument refinement for research on cultural inequality in higher education.