Cultural capital of Chinese rural students in universities

Abstract

The disadvantages of rural students’ cultural capital and the reasons of their disadvantages were explored in this study. Qualitative research was conducted by means of face-to-face interviews. All the research participants were invited to attend an one-hour interview in which the researcher would first investigate the difficulties and challenges rural students encountered, then explore the reasons of their disadvantages, and finally analyze how they used cultural capital to enhance competitiveness by their intelligence and hard work.

Although the differences in academic achievement and working are quite modest. However, according to the research participants’ description, there are still some obvious distinctions between rural students and urban students in universities. Rural students would know less about cultural practice. Some would have never used computer or had access to internet until they entered universities. The dressing style is also a big difference between rural and urban students, especially girls. Urban students’ comprehensive abilities are much stronger than rural students. Because of various differences, rural students would feel inferior when they entered universities. This research is a short-term study and limited questions are probed in the interviews. Nevertheless, this research lays a foundation for the further study on the long-term influence of the disadvantages in cultural capital.