The Acquisition of Symbolic Capital at Tibetan Supplemental Education Programs in China

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Educational Research in the Asian Context

Abstract

Some conceptualize supplementation as education that ‘shadows’ mainstream schooling, while others emphasize such programs’ capacity to transmit to minoritized students valuable and culturally-specific knowledges beyond the explicit curriculum (Bray 2017). I therefore conducted ethnographic research to explore how Tibetan supplemental educators in China conceptualize cultural capital and facilitate its acquisition. Results first show that because mainstream teachers must follow school policy closely, deviating from - rather than ‘shadowing’ - mainstream education facilitated the acquisition of dominant and non-dominant cultural capital at supplemental programs. Second, educators were therefore able to model the acquisition of dominant cultural capital in ways that did not forsake ‘ethnic consciousness’. Finally, teachers too acquired important symbolic capital by ‘paying forward’ their privilege by volunteering to benefit the community.

Author

• Andrew David Frankel, Denison University