Full Citation

Title: Confucius, Yamaha, or Mozart? Cultural Capital and Upward Mobility Among Children of Chinese Immigrants

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 2014

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Abstract: This study examines the determinants of upward mobility among children of Chinese immigrants. While most studies emphasize ethnic cultural capital as a primary determinant of Chinese upward mobility, this study proposes three new concepts to illuminate understudied processes promoting mobility. Specifically, this study argues that Chinese immigrants' interactions with classical music schools in the Chinese community help generate globalized cultural capital (resources from immigrants' participation in transnational networks), navigational capital (the ability to connect social networks together to facilitate community navigation through higher-status educational institutions) and aspirational capital (the ability of parents to acknowledge the barriers to upward mobility). These music schools offer parents highly valued Western cultural capital in the form of difficult-to-acquire competence in classical music, which parents are promised will help their children gain access to higher-status educational institutions. Parents internalize this valorizing of classical music and believe it will help their children. In . . .

Url: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/448/

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Authors: Lu, Wei-Ting

Institution: City University of New York

Department: Sociology

Advisor: Philip Kasinitz

Degree: PhD

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Migration and Immigration, Other

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