On The Investment Strategies Of Cultural Capital And Their Effects On Class Reproduction In Chinese Junior High Schools

Cultural capital investment strategy is an important mechanism for promoting social class reproduction or social mobility.While the Chinese economy has developed rapidly since the Great Reform and Opening Up 40 years ago,there has been tangible inequalities among the social classes of China.However,different from the already solidified class structure in Western societies,China’s social stratification has been less dramatic such that there is still some space for social mobility.In addition,with the increase of parental anxiety about education inequality and the rapid marketization of education resources,Chinese families have developed different approaches to investing in their children’s extracurricular activities for the attainment and reproduction of cultural capital;in response to this demand,private tutoring and art and sports focused private training have emerged rapidly.This dual force has made almost all families eager to spend in the extracurricular market.Therefore,this study will focus on the following two questions: first,what kind of cultural capital investment strategies will parents of different classes adopt for their children to maintain or improve their class status? Second,for different classes,will the rewards of cultural capital investment strategy on children’s education be different(due to familial circumstances)? Investment strategies of cultural capital play an important role in the academic performance and educational expectations of children;this reflects the degree to which families help children reproduce their class status and the likelihood of children moving up in the social economic ladder.Based on Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital and CEPS baseline survey data from 2013 to 2014,this paper uses a hierarchical linear model to analyze the differences of cultural capital investment strategies and their effects on the academic performance and educational expectations of junior high school students.The key findings are: First,the higher the family’s Socioeconomic Status(SES),the more parents pay attention to the overall development of their children.In order to ensure that children get more educational opportunities and cultural resources,and to ascertain advantages in competition,parents will invest more in accruing cultural capital for their children.The higher the average level of families’ economic background in a given school,the more likely the students are to participate in extracurricular education.Second,cultural capital investment strategies have a significant positive effect on children’s academic performance and educational expectation.Third,the results of family cultural capital investment strategies vary from class to class.To wit,lower-class students who participated in the art and/or sports focused curriculum had their educational expectations improved.The findings of this study can help students in the non-dominant class to strengthen their social mobility,and help inspire upcoming studies centered on cultural capital and social mobility.Overall,my findings suggest that the Theory of Cultural Reproduction is an important mechanism linking cultural capital with class status.At the same time,cultural capital investment strategies have different effects on the educational rewards of children in different classes.This study argues that the Cultural Mobility Model also is useful as a supplementary explanation mechanism.In Chinese society,especially in the field of extracurricular education,“Theory of Cultural Reproduction” and “Cultural Mobility Model” are two parallel tracks,which jointly reflect the difference in Chinese families’ cultural capital investment strategy and the heterogeneities of educational rewards for students of different classes.More attention should be given to the reproduction of cultural capital and the diversity and complexity of cultural mobility between different social classes in China.It is also increasingly important to ensure equity in access to educational resources.