Parental Influences on Students’ Cultural Development from Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Based on the discussion of parental influences on students’ participation in music activities in Chaps. 4 – 6 , this chapter explores the similarities in and differences between such influences in Beijing and Hong Kong, and discusses how they are shaped by social and cultural factors in the two regions. This study found that parents from Beijing and Hong Kong generally exerted similar influences on students’ music activities; however, there were slight differences, in that Beijing students perceived that their parents exerted greater physical and mental support for and had more influence on their music listening. The differences in parents’ orientation towards students’ cultural activities in the two regions might be associated with the types of parental support offered for students’ cultural development. This chapter discusses the dynamic relationship between societal factors and parental influences on students’ cultural participation, considering the sociocultural differences between Beijing and Hong Kong. The comparative approach in this cross-cultural study enables a comprehensive analysis of the impact of social and cultural factors on the operationalisation of cultural capital in constructing educational inequality in the Chinese context, especially urban regions, by comparing the similarities in and differences between two regions in China. It offers readers a better understanding of the parental influences on students’ cultural participation by identifying the similarities between two regions; additionally, by comparing the regions’ differences, the study provides insights into the dynamic relationship between social and cultural factors and parental influences on students’ cultural participation. This chapter opens a discussion on how different sociological and cultural factors shape students’ perception of parental influences and how cultural participation contributes to academic advantages, adding value to Bourdieu’s cultural capital idea and the existing research and revisiting their application in the contemporary Chinese context.