University of the Pacific Scholarly Commons University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2018 ROLES OF PARENTS’ CAPITALS IN CHILDREN’S EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES Liping Pan University of the Pacific, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Pan, Liping. (2018). ROLES OF PARENTS’ CAPITALS IN CHILDREN’S EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES. University of the Pacific, Dissertation. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/3130 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 ROLES OF PARENTS‘ CAPITALS IN CHILDREN‘S EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES by Liping Pan. A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION Gladys L. Benerd School of Education Curriculum and Instruction University of the Pacific Stockton, California 2018 2 ROLES OF PARENTS‘ CAPITALS IN CHILDREN‘S EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES by Liping Pan. APPROVED BY: Dissertation Advisor: Ronald Hallett, Ph.D. Committee Member: Delores McNair, Ed.D Committee Member: Marcia Hernandez, Ph. D. Department Chair: Linda Skrla, Ph.D. Dean of Graduate School: Thomas Naehr, Ph.D. 3 ROLES OF PARENTS‘ CAPITALS IN CHILDREN‘S EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIE Copyright 2018 by Liping Pan. 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I was born in a countryside village, and grew in a natural and wild way. I had never ever thought of going to a college even before my senior high school years. However, now I‘m working on my doctoral dissertation. It‘s like a dream that has come true. Over the pursuit of my doctoral degree, I got married and had a baby. I experienced my father‘s bad accident and my mother‘s surgery. I moved to a new apartment and was transferred to a new department. The dissertation writing is a long and hard journey. In this sense, it is a miniature of life. Therefore, I‘ve learned from my dissertation journey how to be a doctoral student, how to be a wife, how to be a mom and how to be a daughter. I will never forget all those who have helped throughout my journey. My sincere thanks should first go to Dr. Ronald Hallett. Without his profound knowledge as a researcher and his consistent companion as a supervisor, the dissertation would never be done. His conversations with me and his recommendations of academic resources really help me. My truthful thanks also go to my dissertation committee members, Dr. Delores McNair, who teaches me the foundation of research, and Dr. Marcia Hernandez, who offers some new perspectives in my study. Finally I would thank my parents for all the love and courage they have built in my heart, my husband for his support throughout the writing journey and my daughter Rena for her choice of me as her mom. 5 Roles of Parents‘ Capitals in Children‘s Educational Opportunities Abstract by Liping Pan University of the Pacific 2018 Bourdieu, the French sociologist, proposed some significant concepts (e.g., habitus, capital and field) to help to explain how social agents play roles in social occurrences. Among his theories, Bourdieu‘s trilogy of economic capital, social capital and cultural capital has now been used as a powerful theoretical framework to explain class reproduction and education equity. Over the past decades, his theories have begun to be introduced and recognized in Chinese academic world. And this research attempts to see whether this western theory works in the Chinese educational context. Shanghai, one of the biggest cities in China, has a huge migrant population. Limited by the unique Chinese hukou system, the migrant population in Chinese big cities mostly faces a challenging situation to ensure their children‘s local educational opportunities, especially during the compulsory education levels. However, the past research only focused on its disadvantaged subgroup, i. e. the migrant worker population while ignoring the vast diversity in their economic, social and cultural capitals among this general population. Therefore, this research, by means of a comparative multiple case 6 study, aims to see how parents‘ economic, social and cultural capitals help to win their children‘s educational opportunities at elementary education level. Studying three typical migrant families with distinguishable strong, medium and weak capitals, the research finds the specific paths how the parents respectively use their economic, social and cultural capitals to obtain more educational opportunities for their children, and eventually produce the divide in educational outcomes, school segregation and social stratification. The research extends its discussion with characteristics of parent capitals, redefinitions of educational opportunities, and an unexpected minor theme about full-time mother. At the end of the dissertation, it can be concluded that Bourdieu‘s trilogy of economic, social and cultural capital does work in Chinese educational context. And it indeed helps us to see more clearly what is happening in present China at a transitional age and calls for service and help to the disadvantaged migrant families in Chinese cities. 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................10 LIST OF DIAGRAMS .......................................................................................................11 CHAPTER 1. Introduction ..........................................................................................................12 Background................................................................................................14 Research Problem......................................................................................21 Purpose of the Study..................................................................................22 Research Questions....................................................................................23 Significance of the Study...........................................................................23 Theoretical Framework..............................................................................25 Description of the Study............................................................................27 Summary....................................................................................................27 2. Literature Review.................................................................................................29 Parental Involvement and Education........................................................29 Conceptual Framework .........................................................................…38 Equality of Educational Opportunity.....................................................…54 3. Methodology ........................................................................................................61 Approach ...............................................................................................…62 Methodology .............................................................................................64 Participants ................................................................................................67 8 Data Collection .........................................................................................73 Data Analysis ............................................................................................79 Trustworthiness..........................................................................................82 Limitations ................................................................................................84 Summary ...................................................................................................85 4. One City, Three Tales ..........................................................................................86 Strong-capital family: We are on a different track....................................86 Medium-capital family: We are catching up............................................114 Weak-capital family: Where is the school?............................................139 5. Discussion ........................................................................................................163 Parents‘ capitals and how they work.......................................................163 Characteristics of parent capitals ............................................................177 Disparity and divide, Stratification and Segregation...............................181 Re-defining educational opportunities.....................................................191 Full-time mother: Why and how..............................................................194 6. Conclusion .......................................................................................................198 Summary of discussion............................................................................198 Hukou problems: Stronger capitals, better solutions..............................199 Geographical and historical comparisons..............................................204 Implications..............................................................................................210 Closing remarks........................................................................................215