Cultural capital, parenting styles and adolescent’s academic achievement in China: based on the cultural capital theory

Based on Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory, this paper discusses the impact of family cultural capital and parenting style on adolescent’s academic achievement in China by employing the data from China Education Panel Study. The results show that, there is a significant class distinction in the family cultural capital, that is, with the promotion of socio-economic status, the amount of cultural capital is increasing as well. In addition to the objective family socio-economic status and parental economic involvement, the family cultural environment is of vital importance to adolescent’s academic achievement and educational attainment, in which both cultural capital and parenting styles are conducive to adolescent’s academic achievement. Furthermore, the mediation analysis indicates that there is an indirect positive effect of cultural capital on adolescent’s academic achievement via the mechanism of parenting style. Such findings remain stable after changing the measurement of parenting style based on latent class analysis. The above findings provide a micro-level explanation for understanding educational inequality and the transmission of educational intergenerational status. In order to create an active family education environment for adolescents’ comprehensive development, the conclusion is that relevant agents should promote the spreading of the advanced family education knowledge, cultivate various types of family cultural capital actively and achieve high-quality development of family education.