Abstract
This study extends Boudon’s positional theory to understand how students from different social origins make choices about university and how they interpret risks during the choice-making process in contemporary China. I draw upon empirical evidence from 71 in-depth semi-structured interviews with undergraduates from different social backgrounds and from different types of universities. The interview data confirm the relevance of Boudon’s thesis in the Chinese context; that is, individuals’ family characteristics manifest in the process of choices and strategies. Furthermore, this study provides new evidence on a pattern of class-bound conformity, which sometimes contradicts the rational course of action from students’ narratives on socioeconomic and cultural identity as well as opportunity risks associated with the quota system. When hope and chance clash, students from working-class or agricultural families reduce to internalize their socioeconomic or geographical disadvantages, come to terms with a lack of equal opportunities in a seemingly meritocratic system.
Highlights
Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory continues to fascinate contemporary sociologists seeking answers to the persistent educational inequality across different social contexts (Reay et al 2009; Van de Werfhorst and Hofstede 2007; Liu 2018)
Social reproduction occurs through secondary effects, whereby the impact of families’ cultural capital is mediated by choices students make about their educational careers
In an attempt to better understand social inequality in choices and strategies in higher education—a topic overshadowed by the Bourdieuian debate’s focus on the rigid cultural reproduction through education—this study extends Boudon’s positional theory to the Chinese context and investigates how students from different social origins make choices regarding higher education
Summary
Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory continues to fascinate contemporary sociologists seeking answers to the persistent educational inequality across different social contexts (Reay et al 2009; Van de Werfhorst and Hofstede 2007; Liu 2018). Speaking, Raymond Boudon’s positional theory—which extends Bourdieu’s cultural capital thesis to understand social differentials through educational choices—is still under-explored and underresearched in the contemporary sociology of education. Social reproduction occurs through secondary effects, whereby the impact of families’ cultural capital is mediated by choices students make about their educational careers. These choices influence their future educational outcomes
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