Challenges in Cultivating Academic Excellence: The Influence of Limited Cultural Capital on the Academic Achievement of Lower-Class Students

Abstract

The phenomenon, “it is difficult to produce a noble son from a low-income family,” reflects the class dilemma that Chinese students from disadvantaged backgrounds are challenging in education. It is the result of their lack of cultural capital, which makes it difficult to occupy a dominant position in academic competition. As for the research on the operating mechanism of the impact of lack of cultural capital on the academic achievement of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, this paper is based on Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory, concerning the “theory of cultural capital at the bottom,” analyzes the realistic representation of the lack of cultural capital of students from disadvantaged backgrounds in the field of education, and tries to explore the feasible strategies for students from low-income families to overcome the inferior cultural capital and realize upward mobility through education. At the micro level, students at the lower level should make full use of the existing cultural capital and school education platform. At the macro level, the state should take corresponding measures to support the education of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.