The dynamic role of cultural capital in the competitive school admission process: a Chinese experience

School choice in China is a parent-initiated bottom-up movement characterised by the payment of a substantial 'choice fee' to the desired school, and parents' positional competition through the use of cultural, social and economic capital, before and during the school choice process. This study demonstrates that Chinese middle class parents' cultural capital and their efforts to help their children to accumulate cultural capital through after-school activities greatly increase their positional advantage in the competitive school admission process in China. The Chinese practice of acquiring cultural capital outside the family has to some extent extended the development of Bourdieu's cultural reproduction theory. The widespread practice of such actions by middle class families clearly illustrates how cultural capital can be used to maintain social stratification by perpetuating educational inequalities that lead to unequal life opportunities for differently schooled people.