Family Digital Cultural Capital and Adolescents' Cognitive Ability: Evidence of Intergenerational Transmission from the China Education Panel Survey

Zheng Lin

doi:10.6918/IJOSSER.202611_9(11).0013

Authors

Zheng Lin College of Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321000, China

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6918/IJOSSER.202611_9(11).0013

Keywords:

Cognitive ability; cultural capital; digital cultural capital; digital divide; educational inequality; intergenerational transmission.

Abstract

Digital cultural capital has emerged as a new mechanism reproducing educational advantage across generations. Using the 2014–2015 wave of the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS; N = 8,691), we construct a multidimensional index of family digital cultural capital (objectified, embodied, and institutionalized) via coefficient-of-variation weighting, and examine its effect on adolescents' cognitive ability. The effect is significantly positive (β = 0.611, p < .001). Embodied capital dominates the weight structure (0.836, vs. 0.113 for objectified and 0.051 for institutionalized capital): the core of digital cultural capital lies in how technologies are used, not what is owned. Parental digital literacy amplifies this transmission, whereas digital entertainment preferences suppress it. Children from agricultural-hukou, economically disadvantaged, and non-only-child families benefit systematically less.

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