| Summary: | <p>With the growth of the gross enrolment rate in higher education in China, the number of college students whose parents have no higher education experience is also increasing. This group of students is known as the first generation of college students. This phenomenon challenges cultural reproduction theories’ view that it is difficult for children from disadvantaged family who lack the cultural capital to realise an intergenerational breakthrough in higher education. Many studies found that family capitals are the core factors to aid first-generation college students to realise such an intergenerational breakthrough. However, to date, numerous studies considered Chinese first-generation college students as rural students and ignored their first-generation urban counterparts. Furthermore, it is essential to establish the role of family capitals based on Chinese students’ experience. Therefore, this research aims to establish the family capitals aiding rural and urban first-generation college students to realise intergenerational breakthrough in higher education, and the differences as well as similarities in rural and urban family capitals. </p>
<p>Using grounded theory, seven family capitals were identified by coding the content of 30 interviews across three groups: rural students, urban students, and rural students whose parents worked in the urban areas. Family capitals consist of normative capital, family guiding force capital, family collaborative capital, emotional capital, Guanxi capital, economic capital, and information capital. In terms of the similarities between the groups, in all three cases these five capitals are present: normative capital, family guiding force capital, emotional capital, Guanxi capital, and economic capital. A difference is that family collaborative capital only exists in the urban group. There is information capital in two groups but not in the case of rural students. There are also differences in the categories and subcategories within the five capitals shared by the three groups. The study finds that the degree of parental involvement in children's learning increased with the average number of years of parental education. This research also provides four recommendations for cultivating first-generation college students: parents should steer children to study in elementary school and trust them adequately in high school; parents should provide role models; school should focus on rural students’ mental health; the establishment of an official, unified college selection information platform would assist students significantly.</p>
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