by Garfield Scott
Literature Review
This literature review begins with findings from research on rural/urban inequality in educational quality and access, which in China prompts a migration from the countryside to the cities by parents seeking not just economic benefits for themselves but also academic benefits for their children. Next, the review examines research that has applied cultural capital theory to educational inequality in China, including cultural capital’s concept of the relationship between habitus and field. The review examines the research on educational options for rural students within the broader context of China’s educational system from the Mao to the current era. After a review of the literature that specifically applies cultural capital to education in China, the review examines research findings on the impact of foreign tutors on academic capital for Chinese students.
Urban v. Rural Inequality in Educational Quality – An International Perspective
Inequality in educational quality between urban and rural schools explains the choices rural parents make to maximize academic benefits for their children. This phenomenon is identified not just in China but even in advanced industrial countries, including the United States. A study by the National Association of State Boards of Education found rural schools in America experience quality problems (measured by academic success of students).[1] The quality deficit for rural schools is due to a number of factors, including low teacher salaries, which in turn causes a high rate of turnover; lower parental educational attainment; and, lack of supplementary resources, such as tutors, Internet access, special education, and specialists.[2]
The phenomenon of educational inequality between urban and rural schools is identified throughout the world. A report by the United Nations identified a quality deficit for rural schools in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.[3] The report identified two primary factors responsible for the quality deficit. First, funding for public education in rural areas is lower per student than funding for public education in urban areas, which is a problem of government policy. Second, socioeconomic factors create a cultural environment that devalues education for rural students. For example, education is not perceived as essential by many rural parents who value their children’s labor for agricultural work and/or because many rural parents themselves lack educational attainment.
The quality deficit of rural education explains choices made by parents to migrate to urban areas not just for economic opportunities but also for academic opportunities for their children. In a review of international migrant flows from rural to urban areas, researchers identified academic resources in urban areas as a factor for many rural parents in their decision to migrate to urban areas.[4] The study found that migrant parents consider more than just employment opportunities for themselves when moving to urban areas where higher-paying jobs are available. Parents also consider educational, social, and economic opportunities for their children.
Thus, the educational quality deficit explains rural versus urban educational inequality not just in China but throughout the world. Rural schools are underfunded, which leads to higher teacher turnover and less availability of supplemental resources that exist for urban students. The quality deficit might also be a result of socioeconomic and cultural factors in rural areas, such as lack of parental educational attainment and the need for child labor in the rural workforce. This deficit is perceived by some rural parents and can be one of the factors that prompts them to migrate to urban areas.
Cultural Capital Theory
Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory emphasizes the role that non-economic resources can provide for socioeconomic advancement.[5] He identified symbolic, cultural, and social capital as these non-economic resources. Symbolic capital could be the status that one has because of their family’s reputation in the community. Cultural capital is the cultural knowledge and behaviors that one displays to gain advantage, such as those provided by higher education. Social capital comes from relationships, which come with obligations. If one party has resources, they are more likely to share those to people they know and trust. It should be noted that cultural capital theory includes both cultural capital and social capital.
Development of cultural capital theory by later theorists has led to its equivalence with social capital.[6] The terminology in the literature often uses cultural and social capital as encompassing symbolic, cultural, and social capital. This review uses cultural capital and social capital to refer to specific resources in the context of educational resources and admissions practices. Cultural capital can be considered educational resources delivered through parental economic and social resources, such as paying for tutors or relationships with school officials; parental supervision of their children’s academic behaviors, and, parental values for education transmitted to their children.[7] Those resources provide the cultural knowledge and skills necessary for socioeconomic advancement in Chinese society. Social capital can be considered the relationships and processes used to gain access to educational resources, particularly the guanxi practices used by parents to gain access in the absence of a meritorious system of admissions. Other theorists have developed cultural capital theory to focus beyond an interpersonal exchange at the relationship level.[8] Social capital can be delivered by institutions, such as schools and companies. Social capital can even be delivered by the state, such as through educational policy or migration policy, both of which are relatable to the issue of rural migrant families in China.
Habitus and Field
Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and field are essential to understanding the dynamics of cultural capital and its impact on educational outcomes. Bourdieu defined habitus as individuals, groups, and institutions in a culture that create, maintain, and favor certain behaviors.[9] The habitus is a structure in the social environment that predicts certain behaviors, which are essential to perform in that environment. These behaviors comprise an entire way of being; they are not just individual behaviors applied in certain circumstances, although they also include those individual behaviors. Within these behaviors are the perceptions, attitudes, ideologies, and beliefs about the self and the social world. For example, the habitus associated with academic success includes how parents and students think about the value of education, how students behave in the classroom, how parents supervise children’s academic work, and how students decide to budget their time for studying.
Habitus occurs within a field, which is the social environment.[10] The field will include a macro environment but also the micro environment that exist as subcultures. The field, such as a family, community, or school, socializes individuals toward the preferred habitus of behaviors, assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes. For example, fields related to academic success include the school environment, the classroom environment, the family, peer environment, and the environments associated with supplementary resources, such as tutors. Success in the field, such as access to resources that the fields provide, depends on the habitus identified previously (i.e., how parents and students think about the value of education, etc.).
Habitus and field can be used to explain the inequalities identified in the first section between urban and rural educational equality. In America, China, and the rest of the world, researchers have identified both field and habitus factors that explain the quality deficit in rural areas. Family background, such as parents’ educational attainment, are a field that predicts the probability of certain habitus necessary for educational success. In Beijing, for example, numerous fields (family, community, private education, public education) favor habitus that maximizes the potential for academic success. In rural areas, parents might discern the field differential that drives their decision to migrate to urban areas to take advantage of different field conditions.
Educational Options for Rural Students in the Chinese Educational System
Historical Change
The Maoist period in China emphasized rudimentary educational gains for rural children, specifically literacy.[11]These gains reflected the fact that most rural peoples in the middle of the 20th Century lacked more than rudimentary literacy, and most left school early for agricultural work. China invested heavily in primary education for rural peoples, which resulted in major achievements toward the goal of universal literacy.[12] However, these gains were also limited by the need for a large portion of the population to remain in agricultural work to feed the growing nation. Thus, investments in secondary and higher education for rural students were limited for most of the Mao era.[13]
The post-Mao era, which begins with Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and continues to this day, included a substantial increase in investment in rural education.[14] The state’s goal was to achieve universal enrollment of rural students in secondary education to prepare them for entry into the industrialized workforce. However, scholars have documented less investment in public education to prepare rural students for entry into higher education, which has been a primary goal of educational policy in urban areas.[15] Rural schools in China are characterized by the quality deficit associated with rural schools in the developing and industrialized countries. This quality deficit is measured by student outcomes associated with entry to higher education and attainment of professional jobs.[16]
Thus, rural education in China has improved since the founding of the People’s Republic. Rural students have achieved universal literacy, and many attend and graduate from secondary education. However, the quality deficit continues because quality expectations are higher as they strive toward equality of educational quality in preparing both urban and rural students for the industrial-professional workforce.
Harmonious Society
This educational quality deficit undermines the state goal of what is officially defined as a “harmonious society.”[17] This goal reflects the reality of socioeconomic inequality in China as a result of urban-industrial development. Even though hundreds of millions of Chinese have entered middle- and upper-class status, wealth inequality has increased. The inequality differential is especially noticeable between urban and rural populations since higher-paying jobs are concentrated in the cities.[18]
Education can be either an instrument for or against the goal of a harmonious society. Public education has helped many Chinese enter the modern workforce and enjoy the privileges thereof. However, the educational system reinforces inequality as urban elites are able to gain resources unavailable to rural students. “In the public education sector, both the central and local governments in China have already been taking actions to terminate privileges and balance resource distribution for public secondary education.”[19] This focus emphasizes the competition for increasingly advanced educational benefits necessary to gain entry to top universities in China and abroad.[20] These benefits are now recognized to begin accruing in early childhood education, and parents with the highest aspirations for their children’s academic success continue to accrue such resources through secondary education.[21]
Zexiao
Such resources include admission to those public schools considered to offer the highest quality of education. Competition for admission to these schools is what is known as zexiao.[22] Zexiao is the term used to describe the “activities in which parents compete for enrolling their children in the limited number of popular schools they prefer instead of the public schools based on the public school admission policies.”[23] The term also describes the practice of public schools admitting students based not on residential status but rather on their academic performance, which violates residential-rule requirements.[24]
Zexiao challenges the state goal of universal education for all, which implies standardized quality among schools. “Nevertheless, this basic principle for compulsory education has continuously been challenged by a developing competition for admission to public schools in China.”[25] Understandably, the state has enacted policies to discourage zexiao. However, these policies have failed as parents and others in the academic environment (tutors, school officials, and others) have enacted “diverse channels for Zexiao … in response to the government’s action of mitigating Zexiao.”[26] These channels reflect the habitus and field conditions of academic behaviors and environments in Beijing and other cities that maintain inequality. Indeed, the literature on Zexiao shows that entry to popular schools from primary through primary levels was predicted based on parents’ socioeconomic status, which contests the public goal of universal access to public schools.[27] “Fathers working in private sector, fathers who were cadres, and fathers who owned private business were the main players in Zexiao.”[28] Parents of higher socioeconomic status gain access to the best public schools through both types of Zexiao activities: Parents deliver academic assistance to their children, such as private tutoring, and parents cultivate relationships with school officials who are willing to enact performance-based rather than residence-based admissions policies.
The scholarship on Zexiao identifies these activities through a student’s educational path. Competition for access to elite primary schools begins at the preschool age and continues as parents seek entry for their children to what they believe are the best junior and senior high schools. Zexiao is undertaken by parents to prepare their children for the national examination that secures university admissions.
Gaokao
Gaokao is the national examination system that determines access to universities and can also be a measure that international universities use to determine admission.[29] Students with access to Zexiao enjoy a scoring advantage on the national exam. The state has recognized the inequality implications of Zexiao on performance on the national exam, and since 2016 has enacted policies intended to achieve the goal of education for all, which implies equity. One policy prohibited for-profit tutoring businesses to provide services to minor students, which “caused stunning losses in value of leading Chinese private tutoring and edtech companies, who were listed in the United States.”[30] However, that policy change allowed nonprofit tutoring organizations to continue providing services to families that could afford them, which makes it “unlikely that parental demand for educational services will decline” and will be predicted by parental socioeconomic status.[31] Indeed, some researchers assert that reforms to the national examination system are necessary to achieve the goal of education for all students regardless of their families’ socioeconomic status, since scores on the national examination are predicted by parental socioeconomic status.[32]
Inequality in Higher Education
Inequality in higher education is thus the culmination of inequality in primary and secondary education. The research shows a disparity in enrollment in university between urban and rural students.[33] Rural students are less likely to take the national examination, less likely to gain admission to universities, and less likely to gain admissions to the most competitive universities in China than urban students.[34] This inequality does not align with the aspirations of rural students. Approximately three out of four rural students express an aspiration to attend university, which is similar to the aspirations of urban students.[35] Unfortunately, the research shows a difference between aspirations and expectations between urban and rural students. Rural students are much less likely to expect they will attend university than urban students despite high aspirations.[36]
Application of Cultural Capital Theory to Education in China
The literature includes specific application of cultural capital theory to education in China. Cultural capital originates in the parent/family’s socioeconomic status, which delivers both cultural and economic capital. Lan Gao, in Impacts of Cultural Capital on Student College Choice Process in China, identifies cultural capital in three constructs: Academic Preparation, Parental Preferences and Expectations, and Parental Involvement.[37]
- Academic Preparation includes providing the child with educational resources before the beginning of compulsory education, whether through preschool or informal methods. Parents begin planning for their children’s education by delivering reading and other learning activities, and parents begin to formulate decisions about ideal schools.
- Parental Preferences and Expectations are a combination of values, rules, and communications between the parents and children about education. Parents express their expectations for academic performance; parents encourage studies and grades and set rules for studies and grades, including rewards and punishment.
- Parental Involvement includes assisting their children with their schoolwork, but in the context of higher education Gao frames this type of cultural capital as assisting children with preparation for the national examination and university choices. Parents participate by visiting potential schools and helping their children make decisions about what schools to attend.
Underlying this cultural capital is economic capital.[38] Parents have the economic resources to pay for supplementary resources, including tutoring, materials, and tuition. Likewise, Jin Liu, in Inequality in Public School Admission in Urban China, identifies cultural capital as “convertible” from economic capital.[39] However, this is not always the case for parents who might have economic capital but lack values, knowledge, and beliefs about education that constitute cultural capital.[40] Economic capital is most often predictive of cultural capital that delivers academic advantages for children of higher socioeconomic status parents, but there might be exceptions for parents that acquired their wealth outside of the normal pathway of educational attainment themselves.
Numerous studies have found a positive correlation between cultural capital and academic outcomes of Chinese students. Tan and Fang, in the Journal of Chinese Sociology, conducted an analysis of more than 11,000 students in grades 7 and 9.[41] They found a positive correlation between the parents’ cultural capital and student effort toward academic performance. Another study found cultural capital to be a greater predictor of academic outcomes for children than economic capital.[42]
Researchers have focused specifically on habitus and field as cultural capital elements predictive of academic success for rural students. Wong and Liao, in Cambridge Journal of Education, documented challenges for rural students in Chinese universities related to cultural assimilation.[43] The unique field of the university environment presented problems of habitus for rural students. Yang, in Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, found cultural capital deficits for rural students in junior high school in Nanjing, specifically cultural capital related to extracurricular activities and parental investment in private tutoring.[44] This cultural capital deficit influenced the school choices of parents (habitus) as they lacked access to a field that imparted information about the best schools.
Foreign Tutors in China
The capitalist reforms of China have included opening of the social and economic environment to foreign business, including a foreign tutoring and educational industry. Immediately after the reforms were enacted in the 1980s, the “marketization of educational provision … led to excessive profit-driven strategies symbolized by heavy investments by the real estate sector in K-12 education.”[45] The role of real estate developers in Chinese education is unique to China and illustrates the influence of the private sector in the Chinese educational system. Real estate developers were among the first sector to be sanctioned by the state to engage in entrepreneurial activities, and the state required assigning certain portions of development to educational services, including private universities and public schools.[46] In some cases, state-owned enterprises partnered with private real estate companies to build private and public schools.[47] These Chinese actors in the private sector often partnered with foreign companies and individuals to provide educational services, particularly English language instruction.
Chinese parents created a demand for English language instruction for their children for several reasons. First, parents recognized the value of English proficiency to gain employment advantages in a globalized economy.[48] Second, parents recognized the necessity of English proficiency for their children to be admitted to American, British, and Australian universities.[49]
International universities are a major status symbol for parents in China, and international universities also provide Chinese students with employment advantages in the globalized economy. Third, English proficiency can help students gain designation as “special talent students.”[50] Special talent students can gain priority for entry to popular public schools regardless of their residential status. Thus, students with access to private English instruction can gain advantage over non-English-proficient students in the competition for entry into high-demand public schools. The demand for private English tutors in China is further driven by the foreign language requirement of the national examination, which allows students to choose among English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, or Spanish.[51] Finally, the demand for foreign English tutors is driven by the superior quality of instruction from native speakers. Indeed, the demand for English instruction has spawned what is perceived and documented to be lower-quality instruction from native Chinese speakers.[52] Native Chinese speakers offer English instruction at a lower cost than native English instructors, but this affordability comes at the expense of quality in many cases.
The demand for English language instruction in China also reflects some parents’ recognition that English proficiency wins esteem from Chinese teachers. Lan Gao, in a study of cultural capital in two high schools in China, described one student who “won the teachers’ attention and admiration” in English class because she was more proficient than her peers as a result of private tutoring.[53] Her father also received private English tutoring, and he frequently talked with his daughter in English at home.
This demand led to the entry of American and British language schools in China, while Chinese-run schools provided other employment opportunities for foreign instructors.[54] Foreign language instructors received compensation and perquisites from international or domestic companies with customers comprised of middle- and upper-class parents. In 2021, China banned for-profit instruction in English and other core subjects, requiring language companies to register as nonprofits.[55] This prohibition was part of an effort by the state to address what can be considered cultural capital inequality. The prohibition addresses the fact that children who receive after-school tutoring, whether in English or other core subjects, gain advantages outside the classroom unavailable to students without cultural and economic capital resources.
Gap in the Literature
The literature shows a gap in a focus on how foreign language instructors in China deliver cultural capital to students, including migrant students. This gap justifies this study’s research questions:
- How does cultural capital factor into a rural student’s ability to compete in urban Beijing high schools?
- To what dynamic do foreign educators expand, develop or provide cultural capital to migrant and urban students?
- Does cultural capital provide upward mobility?
These questions can be answered by the design proposed in this study, which includes ethnographic and autoethnographic methods of data collection. These questions can be answered by those with direct experience delivering foreign language instruction in China. Those experiences include a rich source of data from relationships, observations, and interactions with Chinese students, their parents, and other individuals who represent key stakeholder groups in the Chinese educational system.
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Liu, Jin. 2018. Inequality in Public School Admission in Urban China. Springer.
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America.” Journal of the National Association of State Boards of Education 21 (1): 6-12. https://nasbe.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/2021/01/Tieken-Montgomery_Jan-2021-Standard.pdf
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https://www.unicef.org/haiti/en/education
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Education: Academic and Social Adaptation of Rural Students in Four Elite Universities in Shanghai, China." Cambridge Journal of Education 52 (6): 775-793. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0305764X.2022.2056142.
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[1] Mara Casey Tieken and MK Montgomery 2021, “Challenges Facing Rural Schools in America.” Journal of the National Association of State Boards of Education 21 (1): 6-12. https://nasbe.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/2021/01/Tieken-Montgomery_Jan-2021-Standard.pdf
[2] Ibid
[3] UNICEF. 2024. “Education: Equitable Access to Education for All Children.” https://www.unicef.org/haiti/en/education.
[4] Carola Suárez-Orozco & Marcelo Suárez-Orozco. 2024. “Globalization, Immigrant-Origin, Students & the Quest for Educational Equity.” Daedalus: The Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 153 (4): 21-43. https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/publication/downloads/Daedalus_Fa24_02_Suárez-Orozco_0.pdf.
[5] Ji Ruan, Guanxi, Social Capital and School Choice in China: The Rise of Social Capital. Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, 2017.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Gao, Lan. 2011. Impacts of Cultural Capital on Student College Choice Process in China. Lexington Books.
[8] Schirone, Marco. 2023. “Field, capital, and habitus: The impact of Pierre Bourdieu on Bibliometrics.” Quantitative
Sciences Studies 4 (1): 186-208. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00232.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Liu, Jin. 2018. Inequality in Public School Admission in Urban China. Springer.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Li, Jian, and Eryong Xue. 2020. Shaping Education Reform in China: Overviews, Policies, and
Implications. Springer.
[15] Ryan, Janette. 2019. Education in China: Philosophy, Politics, and Culture. Polity Press.
[16] Li & Xue, Shaping Education Reform.
[17] Lin, Inequality in Public Schools, p. 22.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Jones, Geoffrey, & Yuhai Wu. 2021. “The Business of K-12 Education in China.” Harvard Business School 22-022: 1-50.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Lin, Inequality in Public Schools.
[23] Lin, p. 2.
[24] Lin.
[25] Lin, p. 1.
[26] Lin, p. 2.
[27] Lin.
[28] Lin, p. 46.
[29] Jones & Wu, “The Business of K-12.”
[30] Jones & Wu, p. 1.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Gao, Impacts of Cultural Capital.
[34] Li & Xue, Shaping Education Reform.
[35] Gao.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Gao.
[38] Gao.
[39] Liu.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Tan, G.L.C., and Fang, Z. 2023. “Family Social and Cultural Capital: an Analysis of Effects on Adolescents’
Educational Outcomes in China. Journal of Chinese Sociology 10 (21): 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40711-023-00200-w.
[42] Fan, Jingbao. 2014. “The Impact of Economic Capital, Social Capital and Cultural Capital: Chinese Families’ Access to Educational Resources.” Sociology Mind 4 (4): 1-9. https://www.scirp.org/html/3-3800325_50311.htm.
[43] Wong, Yi-Lee, and Qing Liao. 2022. "Cultural Capital and Habitus in the Field of Higher Education: Academic and Social Adaptation of Rural Students in Four Elite Universities in Shanghai, China." Cambridge Journal of Education 52 (6): 775-793. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0305764X.2022.2056142.
[44] Yang, Liuning. 2022. “How Does Cultural Capital Influence the School Choice of Rural-Urban Migrant Families in Nanjing, China?” Australian and International Journal of Rural Education 32 (3): 90-106. https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/informit.807379609559721.
[45] Jones & Wu, p. 1.
[46] Jones & Wu.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ruan, Guanxi, Social Capital, and School Choice.
[49] Liu, Inequality in Public School Admission.
[50] Liu, p. 58.
[51] Li & Xue.
[52] Liu; Li & Xue; Gao.
[53] Gao, 91.
[54] Gamlan, Richelle. 2021, October 6. “How the ESL Industry in China Is Changing.” New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/business/economy/china-education-tutors.html.
[55] Gamlan.
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