Cultural capital and urban-rural educational inequality in high school enrollment in China : a mixed-methods study

Abstract

The urban-rural divide has been one of the most significant sources of educational inequality in China. Most studies have been interested in examining how policy changes have affected the trends of urban-rural educational inequality in China. However, few have examined the formation process of urban-rural educational inequality. Therefore, this study aims to investigate urban-rural educational inequality from the perspective of familial influences, specifically through the cultural capital theory. Despite many studies examining the concept of cultural capital and how it has contributed to social and educational inequalities in the past few decades, empirical results have remained mixed. Moreover, the habitus and the social field, two critical concept apparatuses along with cultural capital that researchers have shied away from, provide a further direction for research on the cultural capital theory. The present research investigates urban-rural educational inequality in China by examining the relationships between the urban-rural divide, socioeconomic status (SES), cultural capital, and children’s high school enrollment while incorporating the concepts of the habitus and social field to provide further explanations. It follows an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design conducting secondary data analysis using datasets from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). The CFPS implemented a three-stage probability-proportional-to-size sampling (PPS) with implicit stratification and surveyed 33,600 adults and 8,990 youth in 14,960 households. The present research includes 1,900 participants who were middle school students (12–15 years old) in the CFPS 2010 or CFPS 2014. The CFPS collects data at three levels (i.e., community, family, and individual) using five questionnaires. The present research includes measurements of the urban-rural divide, family SES, three forms of cultural capital, and high school enrollment. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, multilevel logistic regression, and multilevel structural equation modeling (SEM) are adopted to analyze quantitative data, finding that the urban-rural divide and SES are both associated with children’s high school enrollment, and the effects of the urban-rural divide are significant when controlling for SES. Moreover, urban and high-SES parents possess more cultural capital preferred by the formal educational system than rural and low-SES parents. Objectified and institutionalized cultural capital predict children’s high school enrollment, while embodied cultural capital does not. The qualitative study with semi-structured interviews with 16 parents (eight urban and eight rural) provides further explanations for urban-rural educational inequality in high school enrollment. Thematic analysis is used to analyze the qualitative data. Urban parents are advantaged in the social field, and their habitus is “spontaneous supportiveness,” while rural parents are disadvantaged, with a habitus of “constructed incompetence.” The significance of the present research lies in three aspects. First, it emphasizes the uniqueness and effectiveness of the urban-rural divide as a stratification variable when examining educational inequality in the Chinese context. Second, it highlights inequality in high school enrollment instead of achievement gaps. Third, it underscores the explanatory value of cultural capital theory, with different forms of cultural capital, habitus, and social fields operating conjunctively to elucidate different trajectories of urban and rural students’ high school enrollment.