“I'm not born to learn it”:A study of the cultural reproduction mechanism of the under class in Chinese society

• In Event: How test-oriented education prevails in school districts: a case study of an urban district in Central China

Proposal

Why is it that students who are academically disadvantaged in China can be very critical of themselves academically, yet still fail to achieve academic advancement, or even simply choose to self-abandon? This study investigates the case of School X, which is characterized by its school districts’ location features, historical development and policy environment as a marginal situation, so that school superintendents, principals, teachers and students within the school also have a sense of marginal experience. The study identified that resource allocation constraints, historical development legacies, examination culture traditions and school status reinforcement as an external macro structure, are the generative logic of School X's external Segregation, leading to the formation of These exclusionary mechanisms are rationalized and legitimized, and gradually integrated into the self-consciousness of academically disadvantaged students,Forming of self-denial expressions and a negative cognitive culture of "institutional self-denial”. This is expressed in the meaning transfer of "it doesn't matter", the institutional identity of "I should", the psychological state of "I don't dare", and the self-denial of "I can't". "I can't" self-assessment. This "negative cognition cultural " is the individual response of academically disadvantaged students before they choose to give up on themselves, so exploring how individuals, as the ultimate "responders," participate in the cultural process from macro-structure to micro-mechanism can further complement cultural reproduction theory. To address the issues of academically disadvantaged students, it is necessary to break through the cultural reproduction mechanisms, including compensating disadvantaged schools for quality resources to promote balanced educational development, bridging the gap between cultural goals and institutional means to alleviate educational stress, eliminating schooling exclusion to promote schooling equity, enhancing family educational capacity, promoting family cultural capital production, and eliminating students' negative cognitive culture to promote physical and mental development.

Author

• Jiahui Du, Central China Normal University