The Educational Power Of The Cultural Capitals Of The Bottom

Along with the proliferation of the "background theory" in the labor market,the educational background of talents has become an important criterion for classifying status classes,and the stratification of higher education is increasingly tied to the fate of individuals and social mobility,and has been given a deeper social meaning.Among them,Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital,as an important tool for studying the problem of stratification,provides a unique theoretical basis and realistic cut for the study of higher education stratification.Taking the concept of cultural capital as the fulcrum,the purpose of this study is to explore the richness of cultural capital at the bottom of the hierarchy by classifying graduates of general and higher education institutions at the bottom of the higher education system into three categories of research subjects and conducting a multiple analysis of their higher education experiences and social mobility trajectories.At the same time,with the special attention to the "living microcosm" from the perspective of the history of educational life,we use educational autobiography,content analysis and comparative analysis to re-examine the higher education life of the research subjects and try to answer the core question of this study: how to view the educational growth of the students at the bottom?First,this study describes the hierarchical structure and its capital differences within the higher education field in China with the help of Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital,and explains its internal and external causes.There are significant differences in physical,objective,and institutional cultural capital among the different hierarchy of institutions in China,with the bottom hierarchy institutions in a relatively disadvantaged cultural position.From the external reasons,the distribution of economic,social and symbolic capital in the field is not favorable to the development of the lower-tier institutions;from the internal reasons,the lower-tier institutions are gradually reduced to the marginal group in the higher education field under the combined effect of the requirements of higher education law,the concern of the change of the subject’s status and the struggle of the power-objective relationship.Second,we attempt to answer the question,"What cultural capital supports the students of the underclass institutions to stand out from them?" That is,the unique form and content of the cultural capital of the underclass.The first is the inclusive cultural taste created by actively extended professional knowledge and richly accumulated cultural experiences,the second is the social moral drive created by ritualized academic pursuit and tangible insight into cultural rules,and the third is the elasticity of psychological quality created by self-regulation of the cohesive body and consciously exercised rational will,which together strongly support the educational acquisition of underclass students.In the mobility trajectory of the underclass students this not only reflects the uniqueness of the underclass cultural capital,but also demonstrates the remarkable performance of the underclass institutions in the unfavorable cultural situation.Again,the attempt to answer the "logic of the production of the cultural capital of underclass" runs through three stages: the beginning,the process,and the end.From the starting point,the higher education goal-setting reserves space for development,including the historical expansion of higher education opportunities in the national strategy,the educational linkage of intellectual youth mobility in the social structure,and the coherent ethos of humanistic literacy in liberal education;from the process,the higher education action construction provides common experiences,including the sharing of intellectual principles in curriculum and teaching,the emphasis on discipline and principles in student management and the augmentation of significant others;in terms of endpoints,the higher education system sets legitimate access,including formal equity in graduate admission rules and the de-hierarchization of student evaluation criteria.Higher education,by virtue of its objective conditions,guides the educational practices of students at the bottom and awakens the vitality of bottom production.Finally,the development of stratification in higher education is reflected upon after a re-examination of the deficiencies of the concept of underclass cultural capital.The concept of bottom cultural capital still has theoretical shortcomings in the political meaning of stratification techniques.Rational stratification of our higher education system requires the development of a common political plan,and the improvement of a relatively equitable educational system as a way to truly achieve high-quality development of higher education in China.