Cultural capital,family background and education: choosing university subjects in China

This article employs Bourdieu’s conceptual tools to unpack family influences on students’ subject and university choices in China. This empirical study employed mixed research approaches, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, to examine students’ choices of subjects and universities in a sample of secondary school students from the age of 16 to 18 in China. This study reveals that while there are few class differences in subject choice, students’ choices of a selected university is significantly associated with higher family income level. The data show that the probability of entering a top university for students from high-income families is greater than that of students from low-income families.