The Uneven Convertibility of Family Cultural Capital to Academic Engagement and Research Self-Efficacy Among Chinese Graduate Students with Rural and Urban Backgrounds

This study examined how different forms of family cultural capital are linked to Chinese graduate students’ academic engagement and research self-efficacy, and whether these pathways differ by rural–urban background. Drawing on cultural capital theory and social cognitive theory, the study distinguished embodied, objectified, and institutionalized family cultural capital and conceptualized academic engagement as a behavioral pathway through which family-based resources may become relevant to research. Survey data were collected from 412 graduate students at five public universities in China. Partial least squares structural equation modeling with 5000 bootstrap resamples was used to test direct and indirect pathways separately for students from rural and urban backgrounds. The results showed that embodied family cultural capital was positively related to academic engagement in both groups, and academic engagement was positively related to research self-efficacy. Academic engagement mediated the relationship between embodied family cultural capital and research self-efficacy for both rural- and urban-background students. However, embodied family cultural capital only had a significant direct relationship with research self-efficacy among urban-background students. Objectified family cultural capital was only negatively related to research self-efficacy among rural-background students, while institutionalized family cultural capital showed no significant relationships in either group. These findings suggest that family cultural capital is not uniformly converted into research self-efficacy in graduate education. Its role depends on the form of cultural capital and the rural–urban context in which academic engagement is enacted. Theoretically, this study shows that the conversion of family cultural capital into research self-efficacy is form-specific and context-dependent. Practically, it identifies academic engagement as a key leverage point for promoting equitable research development among graduate students from diverse family backgrounds.