Accessing the arts: family and school influences on instrumental learning among children with special educational needs in China

This study investigates the influence of family, peer, and school resources on Chinese lower-secondary students’ participation in instrumental learning, with a particular focus on students with Special Educational Needs (SEN). Guided by Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory and Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model, it examines how economic, cultural, and school resources shape participation through musical interest and home–school cooperation. Utilising nationally representative China Education Panel Survey data (N = 18,356; 1,169 with SEN) and complex-survey mediation models, results indicate that cultural capital, including peer and family cultural activity, is more consistent than income in predicting instrumental learning. For students with SEN, parental prestige and peer culture are more influential, and school-related resources have suggestive associations with participation through home–school cooperation. Once mechanisms are modelled, gender and hukou disparities are largely reduced. These findings shift the focus from availability and cost to conditions that sustain participation, identifying musical interest and relational cooperation as keys to inclusive instrumental music education. SEN and non-SEN students have similar participation rates (10.7% and 10.8%), but with different mechanisms: among students with SEN, peer culture operates through musical interest, supplemented by home–school cooperation, whereas students without SEN benefit from direct family cultural transmission.