Family Wealth And Basic Education Stage Acquisition

Educational stratification is one o f the classic sociological themes. Whose children acquire a better education? Lots o f classic studies illustrated the relation between family background and educational attainment, and generally agreed that the advantaged classes can get better education opportunities. Since the cultural capital, the social capital and the economic capital are the elements o f the mainstream framework o f this topic, this article also studied about those three dimensions. The academic community reached a consensus about that the family cultural capital and social capital have strong positive effects to the educational attainment o f the offspring. But the conclusions about the economic capital dimension are different in empirical studies. Therefore, the core is to find out the influence o f the economic capital to the educational attainment.The “family wealth” is the key independent variable, while the student’s achievement is the dependent variable. With the support o f the rational action theory(RAT), the effectively maintained inequality theory(EMI), the class reproduction theory, the culture schema theory as well as the gender perspective, the hypothesis was made. Then, the article tested the assumption by establishing a multi-linear model. According to the statistical model, there are four conclusions. Firstly, the family wealth has a significant positive effect on educational attainment, which means the student? achievement could be better when the family wealth is higher. Secondly, the student who has higher family cultural capital has a better grade in school, which points out the strongly intergenerational reproduction o f culture capital. Thirdly, under the same conditions o f status, the family wealth has a negative impact on student’s achievement. Fourthly, under the conditions o f equal status, the significant negative effect is stronger for girls than boys.Based on the four conclusions, the central point o f the author is that the family wealth is a double edged sword for children’s educational attainment. In order to keep the class status, the advantaged classes has both the motivation and the ability to help their children get better education resources and better scores through the compulsory education period. So, the inequality o f education is the differences o f the education quality. However, people can also be influenced by the cultural and social environments. The economic advantages could be something bad to the children’s educational achievement in the same status conditions. Studying is not the only future when you have money. The children may not have a strong motivation o f studies, as they have much more possibilities to choose different future by the support from their family’s wealth, and the negative effect is more significant for girls.