It is not certain that the relatively high social mobility in China is fertile for the formation of cultural capital-an exclusive culture of the elites. Due to the continual urbanization in China, from 26% in 1990 to 60% in 2018, statistics on social mobility continue to be higher than in the West (Zhou & Xie, 2019 NBS China, 2020). China had very high social equality under socialism, with high social mobility as late as 10 years after reform. First, the formation of cultural capital in the West has been more gradual, over longer periods of relatively low social mobility (Accominotti et al., 2018 DiMaggio, 1982). However, Bourdieu's theory contains Western-centric presumptions that differ from China's social and cultural realities, questioning whether his argument on cultural capital as a mechanism of social reproduction is directly applicable to China. His theory on cultural capital as elite social reproduction has also been supported in other Western societies (eg. Bourdieu believes that cultural consumption is in homology with social position, such as the linkage between “highbrow” art and elites ( 1984). When deeply embedded into the habitus, cultural capital may appear as “natural” qualities as they are hard to acquire later in life (Bourdieu, 1984 Bourdieu & Passeron, 1979 Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). More importantly, cultural capital can also be in embodied forms such as preferences, tastes, and manners of movement (Friedman, 2011 Holt, 1997). Cultural capital includes cultural resources such as education and cultural knowledge-“institutionalized, i.e., widely shared, high status cultural signals (attitudes, preferences, formal knowledge, behaviors, goods and credentials) used for social and cultural exclusion” (Lamont & Lareau, 1988, p. Based on a study in France, Bourdieu argues that inequalities in resources are not limited to economic capital but also include cultural and other forms of capital, as they can also be converted into social advantages (Bourdieu, 1984, 1986). Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital provides the framework that explains how cultural endowments can be used to perpetuate intergenerational privilege. Understanding cultural disparity today requires more than a synchronic examination of differences in material resources today-it calls for a diachronic examination of the rigidification of past inequalities into the present. The gap between the elites and the underclasses has widened beyond differences in material ownership into the values and perceptions inculcated through divergent upbringings. While the earlier generation of elites displayed wealth with parvenu-tastes reflective of their humble socialist roots, the new generation of elites distinguishes with their deeply embodied cultural endowments. This research suggests a causal link between economic inequality, intergenerational transmission of privilege, and the widening cultural disparity in China today-the shift in elite taste from parvenue to “highbrow” taste, and the intergenerational explanations for the shift. A consequence of the rising inequality since post-socialism is that a new generation of elites has grown up with privileged upbringings, leading to a wide gap in cultural endowments today. My research builds upon those findings by examining the cultural side of that change. Yang et al.’s article finds a shift in the composition of elites from staff and workers in an earlier generation to highly educated professionals today ( 2021).
Social mobility has decreased since the 1990s (Zhou & Xie, 2019), while the influence of family background on educational attainment has increased (Wu, 2010). While there is plenty of research on economic inequality in China, research on intergenerational transmission of privileges in China is relatively rare. Studies have explained the rising income inequality as due to the widened disparity between the rural and urban areas (Wu & Treiman, 2007 Zhang & Treiman, 2013) and in people's educational attainment (Nee, 1991 Wu & Xie, 2003 Zhou, 2000). The Gini coefficient, which measures inequality in income distribution, surged from low levels in the late 1980s to have now leapfrogged “capitalist” societies such as the United States and United Kingdom, as well as other countries at similar levels of development as China (World Bank, 2010 Xie & Zhou, 2014). Income inequality initially decreased in the 1980s but has increased since the 1990s (Bian & Logan, 1996 Yang, 1999). While the scale of economic development is unprecedented, the gap between the elites and the underprivileged has widened considerably. The transformation of China since the Reform and opening-up has been a subject of much research.
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