A St udyont heEf f ect sof Cul t ur alCapi t alonSoci al
St udi esAchi evement
Li m,Ko-e un De par t me ntofSoc i alSt udi e sEduc at i on TheGr a dua t eSc hool Se oulNat i onalUni ve r s i t y Maj orAdvi s or :Mo,Kyung-hwa n,Ph.D.
This research based on the academic achievement of social studies tried to empirically verify the cultural reproduction theory of Bourdieu in Korean society. According to the cultural reproduction theory of Bourdieu, children raised in high socioeconomic status acquire cultural capital more abundantly than those in low socioeconomic status and based on abundant cultural capital, they show high academic achievement and can reproduce the socioeconomic status of their parents. At this point, student's cultural capital mediates the relationship between the socioeconomic status of parents and academic achievement.
Accordingly, this research focusing on the academic achievement of
social studies tried to reveal the effects of the socioeconomic status of parents on the cultural capital of students and those of the cultural capital on the academic achievement of social studies in order to empirically verify the cultural reproduction of Bourdieu. If the mediation of cultural capital between the socioeconomic status and the academic achievement of social studies are understood, it was expected that the cultural reproduction theory of Bourdieu can be verified in Korean society. According to this research purpose, following research issues and hypotheses were established.
<Research Issue 1> How does the socioeconomic status of parents influence the cultural capital of students?
Hypothesis 1-1. The socioeconomic status of parents gives positive influence on the cultural activities (cultural capital I) of student.
Hypothesis 1-2. The socioeconomic status of parents gives positive influence on the reading activities (cultural capital II) of student.
<Research Issue 2> How does the cultural capital of students influence the academic achievement of social studies?
Hypothesis 2-1. The cultural activities (cultural capital I) of students will give positive influence on the academic achievement of social studies.
Hypothesis 2-2. The reading activities (cultural capital II) of students will give positive influence on the academic achievement of social studies.
In order to verify the above hypotheses, the preceding studies
as cultural activities (cultural capital I) and reading activities (cultural capital II) was developed. In addition, a total of 3 middle schools located in the metropolitan area were selected after consideration for the differences of the socioeconomic backgrounds and a questionnaire was conducted on 519 students after sampling 5 classes of each school. Among them, 17 sets from non-respondents or insincere respondent were excluded and a total of 502 sets were used for analysis. AMOS 20.0 program was used for the data to perform structural equation modeling analysis.
As a result of the first research, the first hypothesis that the socioeconomic status of parents will positively influence the cultural capital of students was verified. As a result of the structural equation modeling analysis, the cultural activities (cultural capital I) and reading activities (cultural capital II) of students were proven to be all affected by the socioeconomic status of parents.
Furthermore, it was found that the socioeconomic status of parents more influences the cultural activities than the reading activities of students.
As a result of the second research, the cultural activities (cultural capital I) of students don't significantly influence the academic achievement of social studies but the reading activities (cultural capital II) of students give positive influence on the academic achievement of social studies. Accordingly, when the first research result is summarized, it was confirmed that the cultural activities of students don't mediate between the socioeconomic status of parents and the academic achievement of social studies but the reading activities of students mediate between the socioeconomic status of parents and the academic achievement of social studies.
It was confirmed that as the socioeconomic status of parents is
higher, students read cultural and literary books more and go to libraries and bookstores more often and like to read and discuss books with people and these reading activities works favorably to the learning of social studies to lead to high academic achievement of social studies. However, it was shown that the socioeconomic status of parents gives positive influence on the academic achievement of social studies not only indirectly but also directly.
Accordingly, the effect of the socioeconomic status of parents on the academic achievement of social studies can be considered to be not full mediation by reading activities but partial mediation.
But, according to the cultural reproduction theory of Bourdieu, it is assumed that not only reading activities (cultural capital II) but also abundant cultural activities (cultural capital I) for children of ruling classes can be helpful. In fact, when it comes to the 2009 revised middle school curriculum of social studies, students with wide cultural experience and background knowledge are considered to be beneficial to learn social studies than those without them. However, as a result of structural equation modeling analysis by this research, cultural activities don't give significant influence statistically to the academic achievement of social studies and it is required to examine its reasons.
First, participation in cultural activities can reduce the time to input in study so that positive effects of interrelationship between cultural activities and social studies curriculum can be countervailed.
As pointed out by Kim and Byun(2007), Byun and Kim(2008), participation in cultural activities can be an obstacle factor to study by reducing the time to input in study. In order to obtain high records from the mid-term exam, a regular time is required to concentrate on study. But various cultural activities rather reduce
the time to study oneself or participate in private lessons so that it has the possibility not to be directly connect to the academic achievement of students.
Second, the problems of the cultural capital measurement method can be pointed out as a reason. Many researchers including DiMaggio tried to understand and measure the cultural capital explained in various meanings by Bourdieu as 'Elite Status Culture'.
But, culture has relative attributes and it is difficult to accurately understand and measure which activities belong to Elite Status Culture. Therefore, in order to manipulate cultural capital, many scholars show a little different viewpoints on the indicator to measure the possession degree of cultural capital. This research also tried to measure the cultural capital of Korean society but couldn't reflect all factors accurately and there is a possibility not to draw a significant result.
Participation in cultural activities didn't give significant influence on the academic achievement of social studies in this research but when it is considered that cultural activities have close connection with the social studies curriculum of high schools, cultural activities are expected to influence the learning of social studies in another way. For example, students with abundant cultural attainment may have higher academic self-efficacy about social studies or higher interest in the subject than those without it. Namely, even though cultural activities may not give direct influence on the academic achievement of social studies, it has a possibility to influence positive attitude toward social studies. Therefore, it is hoped that succeeding studies on the effects of cultural activities on interest in social studies or academic self-efficacy can be conducted.
This research tried to empirically verity the cultural reproduction