A Strategic Investment: Understanding Chinese Middle-Class Families’ Motivations for UK Education through Bourdieu’s Lens of Capital, Habitus, and Field

• Xintong Ju

  Author

In this study, the theoretical framework of field, habitus and capital is taken as the research basis, and the reasons why Chinese middle-class families choose British education are analyzed from the sociological level. The research results show that overseas education is a strategic investment for Chinese middle-class families to pursue social status, improve social mobility, and reproduce their class. In this study, qualitative research method is used, in-depth interviews are conducted, and the development of participatory observation is carried out. The study focuses on the families of Chinese middle class and collects detailed information. The research results show that the educational choices of these families are inevitably related to social capital network, cultural capital accumulation and economic capital allocation. Most parents believe that British education can provide children with a good educational environment, help children form a good international perspective, and cultivate children's elite identity, so that they can stand out in the global competition.
In this study, we further analyze the contradictions and complexities faced by the middle class in the process of education investment. Parents want to send their children to study abroad in order to achieve social mobility, but they are not satisfied with the domestic education system. On the contrary, they are anxious about the decline of social status, and they are unwilling to see the solidification of social classes. The concept of habitus can help us understand how these families adjust their educational strategies in different social fields to achieve the purpose of maximizing benefits. This study further points out that the educational choices of middle-class families are not only individual decisions, but also collective strategies, which need to be considered from the perspective of multiple generations and integrated resources. This model of education investment not only shows that the education market has achieved internationalization, but also shows that the middle class has a strong sense of social anxiety and identity crisis in the process of social transformation.

• JEBH000013.pdf