Chinese parents who don't roll the piano have exposed the truth of an investment in education

Recently, a migrant worker playing the piano on the streets of Shenzhen received an invitation to the Spring Festival Gala, and his simple love for the piano was moving. However, according to media reports, in recent years, the piano is no longer popular, the piano stores in the first and second tier cities have closed one after another, and the piano priced at 5-60,000 yuan has no one to sell, and the price of piano training has dropped again and again. Some analysts believe that this change is related to the cancellation of the 2018 high school entrance examination bonus policy for students with art specialties. At its peak, about 40 million people in China were engaged in piano learning, and within a few years, a large number of piano children were lost, reflecting a rather pragmatic educational strategy.

This article focuses on the attitudes and practices of middle-class families in Shanghai towards piano learning. In the context of the Chinese Chinese language, Chinese parents focus on academic achievement to cultivate their children, and piano learning is not to cultivate class taste, but to be measured by educational returns. After the cancellation of the examination bonus policy, the school selects students with standardized examinations, and piano ability does not have an advantage in the examination, and learning piano has become "useless" in the face of the pressure of going on to higher education. Therefore, many parents voluntarily give up on letting their children learn the piano and instead add extracurricular cram schools for their children with higher returns on education. Even if you continue to learn piano, most of them are not trying to develop artistic appreciation, but the ultimate goal is the exam – parents expect their children to gain a potential competitive advantage in the "junior high school".

The authors point out that under the guidance of "learning and excellence", educational returns have become the standard for Chinese parents to evaluate all extracurricular activities, and art cultivation is no exception. It is understandable why, under the rounds of "burden reduction orders", Chinese parents are more eager for extracurricular cram schools.

This article was originally published in China Studies, No. 24, 2019, with the title "The Piano Is Useless: Cultural Capital Cultivation Strategies for Middle-class Parents in Shanghai". It represents the author's point of view only and is for readers' reference.

Piano useless:

Middle-class parent in Shanghai

Strategies for cultivating cultural capital

▍ Quote

After the equality of basic education in schools has become more and more equal, and the advantage gap between families to fight for advantageous positions through academic qualifications has been relatively reduced, extracurricular education has gradually become an indispensable part of the education form of urban students, and has become a new mechanism of educational inequality. According to the "2017 White Paper on Family Education Consumption in China" released by Sina.com, nearly 90% of urban children of preschool age (0~6 years old) have attended extracurricular tutoring classes, and education expenditure accounts for an average of 26% of the annual family income, while about 81% of urban students in basic and secondary education (7~18 years old) have attended extracurricular tutoring classes, and education expenditure accounts for an average of 21% of the annual family income. A child's extracurricular education in the preschool years is based on hobbies, and when they enter the school system, they aim to improve their academic performance. In response to the extraordinary popularity of extracurricular education, the Ministry of Education and the State Council have continuously issued orders to reduce the burden and rectify it, but extracurricular training institutions have been repeatedly banned, which has become one of the sources of "collective anxiety" of contemporary parents, especially middle-class parents.

Extracurricular education can be broadly divided into two categories: extracurricular tutoring and extracurricular interest learning, which have different mechanisms for influencing educational inequality. After-school tutoring, commonly known as "shadow education", refers to the fee-based tutoring of subjects taught in schools in addition to school education. Extracurricular interest learning refers to non-academic extracurricular activities with a fee-based nature, such as painting, playing the piano, dancing, sports, etc., which is commonly known as "extracurricular interest classes". Extracurricular tutoring directly affects academic performance, while the impact of extracurricular interest learning is indirect, which is more about cultivating children's artistic appreciation and sports ability, improving their cultural capital, and indirectly affecting educational outcomes.

The limited role of cultural capital on academic achievement in China's school system has been extensively discussed in existing studies. Relatively little attention has been paid to the process of cultivating cultural capital. Since the reform and opening up, the marketization of education has promoted the independent choice of education, and the choice of extracurricular education by middle-class parents can better reflect their value pursuit due to their relatively sufficient economic capital. In recent years, the motherhood of middle-class families has taken on the characteristics of brokers, taking on the overall planning and specific responsibilities of children's education. Parents (especially mothers) emphasize independent choice and self-responsibility in the choice of extracurricular education, so that extracurricular education reflects the self-wishes of parents. The form and content of cultural capital are freely chosen by the family, and its main form is extracurricular interest learning. The cultivation of cultural capital requires a large amount of capital investment and sufficient time accumulation, which is bound to compete with school education and extracurricular tutoring, especially in the context of fierce educational competition in China. So, how do families choose and cultivate their children's cultural capital, and how do they balance the relationship between school education and the cultivation of cultural capital?

This paper takes the attitude and practice process of middle-class parents in Shanghai towards piano learning as an example, and tries to understand the intergenerational cultural capital cultivation strategy of middle-class parents. In Western literature, the cultural capital represented by high art is often regarded as the taste culture of the middle class, which is one of the intergenerational mobility strategies that distinguishes it from the disadvantaged class. Then, from the cultural capital cultivation strategy of Chinese middle-class families, we can further understand the form and meaning of extracurricular education in China's education system and its reform.

▍The debate on the "usefulness or uselessness" of cultural capital

Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital sees the appreciation of high art as a symbol of class taste, and an important way to connect with others in the same class, strengthen each other's class identity, and distinguish yourself from other classes. The ability to appreciate high art is an important cultural capital of the dominant class, representing the elite culture. In his book "Compartmentalization", he analyzes in detail the class differences in the ability to appreciate high art, for example, the bourgeoisie prefers obscure Bach works, the middle class prefers classical music such as "Blue Rhapsody" and popular or lyrical pop music, and the working class prefers popular classical music such as "Blue Danube" and popular music without esoteric artistic themes. This class difference is not only reflected in the ability to appreciate music, but also in painting, entertainment and even eating habits.

Subsequent research focused on the relationship between cultural capital and academic achievement, that is, whether cultural capital, represented by the ability to appreciate fine art, can be transformed into academic advantage. Bourdieu believes that the appreciation of fine art contributes to students' studies. The taste of the dominant class influences the system and culture of the school, and is the dominant culture taught and encouraged in school education. The appreciation of fine art is easily recognized by teachers and peers in school, making students from middle-class families feel "at home" in school, while the children of the working class do not have this ability, and they find it difficult to adapt and feel uncomfortable in school. In this way, the appreciation of fine art is transformed into educational advantage and human capital through the school's cultural system, and the children of the middle class gain an advantage in school.

DiMaggio's series of studies also supports the role of appreciation for high art in promoting academic achievement. Through his survey and analysis of American junior high school students, he found that the appreciation of fine art can improve academic performance, and the positive impact on non-technical subjects is greater. The ability to appreciate high art had a direct effect on academics when family class status was controlled, and this effect continued into the students' university years. Later studies have also found that the appreciation of fine art makes it easier for students to gain recognition and appreciation from teachers, and to interact with their peers more easily, helping them to understand the content of the school and make the most of the school's educational resources.

A cross-cultural study of East Asian societies has found that appreciation of fine art does not necessarily promote but may harm academic achievement in a school environment under the big examination system. Studies in Japan and South Korea have shown that the school system under the big examination system emphasizes normativity rather than creativity, and uses standardized teaching content and test scores as a unified criterion for selecting students. In this school environment, the ability to appreciate fine art is hardly an advantage for students, and even if it is appreciated by teachers and peers, it is difficult to translate into higher test scores. In addition, the development of an appreciation of fine art takes a lot of time, which takes away time that should be spent on standardized exam content, which in turn negatively affects academic achievement. For example, Wu Yuxiao et al. found that whether the appreciation of fine art can promote academic achievement depends on the school system, and the more emphasis the school is on quality education, the greater the effect of this ability on academic achievement, and vice versa, the ability is difficult to use.

It should be pointed out that there is a basic premise in this debate over the "usefulness and uselessness" of high art, that is, the cultivation of cultural capital is a hierarchical process and has little to do with the school system. Bourdieu believes that the ability to appreciate high art is formed by family background and life experience. The cultivation of the ability of the dominant class families to appreciate the elegant art of their children does not come from the reward of the school system, but the recognition of their own class culture, which is a kind of cultural "separation", which is considered to be the culture that the next generation should know and inherit. As Bourdieu puts it, the ability to appreciate high art "is transmitted in a more subtle and indirect way, without even step-by-step effort and visible action". Although Di Maggio has begun to emphasize the acquireability of the ability to appreciate high art, and argues that the disadvantaged classes gain a greater academic advantage from such abilities, his research does not place much emphasis on the acquisition process.

This paper questions the assumption that the cultivation of cultural capital originates from class inheritance. Although the literature often argues that the cultivation of cultural capital is relatively unconscious compared with educational expectations, it has a certain purpose as an important part of parenting. Parents' ability development of their children is a process of using their knowledge and abilities to interact with social institutions, with the aim of helping their children win in future competitions. The ultimate purpose of family parenting is to promote upward mobility or avoid downward mobility, but the way in which it is practiced depends on the extent to which intergenerational mobility (or reproduction) is required through education. Since China's reform and opening up, education has become the core way of upward mobility, which makes the process of cultural capital cultivation should not be regarded as a simple inheritance of class culture, but should consider its relationship with education in the process of cultural capital cultivation. Therefore, this paper takes the interaction between home and school as a new analytical dimension different from class inheritance, and regards the cultivation of elegant art appreciation ability as a coping strategy for families to reflect on the school system, so as to understand the new meaning of cultural capital in the context of Chinese Chinese.

▍Cultural capital cultivation and intergenerational mobility

In addition to the subtle elements, the cultivation of the family's ability to appreciate the elegant art of their children also has a certain purpose, hoping to help them occupy an advantageous position in the future competition. According to Lareau, the middle class has adopted a "concerted cultivation" style of parenting, in which parents communicate with their children in a "reasonable" rather than commanding way, and carefully plan and design their children's free time to develop talents and expression skills. Through the development of these abilities, families try to pass on to their offspring the knowledge, strategies, habits and styles that are appropriate to school, workplace or other social institutions, so as to help them better adapt to the social environment.

Therefore, the parenting style of parents has a reflective character. Lan Peijia calls it a "good product pursuit" for parents. Based on their expectations of their children's future lifestyle, parents determine the qualities needed to achieve that lifestyle, and then determine their specific parenting practices. The ultimate goal of family parenting is to achieve upward mobility or avoid downward mobility of offspring, so the core values cultivated by family upbringing are closely related to the way of intergenerational mobility, and are influenced by the social structure, education system and cultural background of different countries. For example, cultural selection plays a large role in intergenerational mobility in France, so appreciation of high art is considered a core value of intergenerational mobility, while educational selection plays a large role in intergenerational mobility in Korea, where the core value of intergenerational mobility is not appreciation of fine art, but academic achievement.

Confucian culture emphasizes "learning and excellence", attaches great importance to intergenerational mobility of children (or at least avoids declining status), and coupled with the fact that China's education system is similar to that of South Korea, and the competition for education selection is fierce, it can be inferred that Chinese parents are similar to Korean parents and also regard academic performance as the core value of intergenerational mobility. Hou Liming proposed that Chinese parents follow the educational strategy of "declining academic qualifications", regard school education as the driving force of intergenerational mobility, and believe that the academic qualifications of the offspring are the end point of intergenerational mobility, and do not attribute education to class status, or automatically link academic achievements with future class status. The pursuit of academic achievement is particularly strong among middle-class parents, as middle-class parents are more likely to decline in intergenerational status than the disadvantaged class.

This paper argues that Chinese parents' perception of academic achievement as the core value will affect the way they view and cultivate their children's cultural capital, and then incorporate the cultivation of cultural capital into the evaluation system of educational returns. Since academic achievement is seen as a driver of intergenerational mobility, parents will benchmark their children's parenting style based on their returns in school selection, and will be deeply influenced by the school's teaching content, examination format and selection mechanism, and the cultivation of cultural capital represented by the appreciation of fine art is no exception. In the context of the Chinese Chinese language, the cultivation of cultural capital is difficult to form a class inheritance that has little to do with education and reflects the class taste, as Bourdieu said, but is closely linked to the school system, adopts the same logic as subject training, and weighs it through its educational returns.

▍Research concepts and research methods

This paper analyzes the cultivation strategies of cultural capital by studying the attitudes and practices of middle-class families in Shanghai towards piano learning. As a major representative of Western musical instruments, the piano is the most familiar elegant art form in Chinese families. Because it is easier to learn than other musical instruments, the initiation time is relatively early, and the learning environment is mature, the piano has become the first choice for Chinese families to train their children's musical instruments. Piano learning has a wide audience and many teachers among primary and secondary school students in Shanghai, and people often think of the piano when they think of learning a musical instrument.

In addition, the piano has a well-established amateur examination system. At present, there are two types of piano examinations organized by domestic music institutions in Shanghai, which are organized by the Shanghai Musicians Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Music Association Examination") and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music (hereinafter referred to as the "Shangyin Examination"). The music association exam is slightly more difficult than the upper tone exam, but the exam format is basically the same. Taking the music association examination process as an example, the official examination date is from mid to late August, and there are 2~3 examiners in the examination room, and one candidate is required to enter the examination room and perform 1 prescribed foundation and 3 prescribed pieces with his back to the examiner. If you do not receive the unqualified email from the examination organizer later, you will be deemed to have passed the examination, and the grade certificate will be issued subsequently. This grading system can help parents plan their children's piano learning, and better grasp the balance with the school compared to other types of training processes.

The analysis of this paper is mainly based on in-depth interviews with middle-class parents and piano teachers in Shanghai. Through semi-structured interviews, the author collected 12 cases of middle-class families in Shanghai. The children in these families are 6~16 years old, there are 9 girls and 3 boys, 4 of whom are learning piano and 7 have had different levels of piano learning experience. The 12 children are all local residents in Shanghai, and their parents are mainly engaged in the pharmaceutical industry, human resources, college teachers, middle-level managers and other occupations, and four of them have the experience of learning piano themselves. The author also interviewed a male piano trainer who graduated from a school majoring in music theory and has 10 years of experience in amateur piano teaching, and learned about the overall situation of the amateur piano learning industry in Shanghai and the attitude of parents towards piano learning in the eyes of teachers. In addition, we interviewed a teacher who is working in a Shanghai Demonstration Experimental High School (commonly known as "City Key") (whose children are also learning piano) and learned about the situation of high school students learning piano in recent years. In accordance with academic convention, the names appearing in the article have been changed.

▍ The piano is useless

(1) Piano learning that voluntarily gives up

Most middle-class parents in Shanghai are exposed to piano initiation from the age of 4, that is, around the middle of kindergarten. At this stage, parents will let their children try different hobbies, and the piano will become the first choice for learning musical instruments. Private kindergartens provide convenience for children to get in touch with the piano. Some private kindergartens will offer piano classes, calligraphy or painting classes, and most of these classes hire external teachers, usually voluntarily and for an additional fee. Xiaoru is in her third year of junior high school this year, and her piano initiation began in a private kindergarten. At that time, teachers from outside art schools came to the school to offer voluntary self-funded piano lessons, and after signing up, they began to learn piano. In the eyes of most parents, piano learning is to cultivate a hobby for their children, and there is no clear purpose and will. Because it is relatively easy to use and has a wide audience, it has become one of the types of talents favored by parents. As Xiao Ming's parents described:

"[We were studying] not only piano, but also calligraphy and Go. The child either goes to this class or that class, everyone is in school, and they always have to choose one and learn. ”

In contrast to the enthusiasm of piano enlightenment, the loss rate of piano learning is also very high. Many parents give up their children's piano learning in the early stages of enlightenment. The loss of piano learning mainly occurs at two nodes, both of which are related to further education, namely "young to primary" and "small to junior high". "Kindergarten to primary school" is the first watershed in the road of piano learning, which is also the reason why most families only last for one or two years before the piano learning ends hastily. None of the respondents in this article gave up the piano at this time, but according to their observations of children from other families, it can be found that there are not a few parents who give up piano learning at this point. Xiaowen's parents said: "At first, there may be children who learn, but many give up after trying for a year or two. ”

This collective renunciation can hardly be seen as a natural drain of piano learning. It is true that the piano, as an elegant art, is relatively boring in the basic accumulation stage, and the time required for enlightenment is long, it takes 8~10 years for a piano child to basically master various piano performance skills, and there are not many people who can persist in learning the whole process. However, one to two years of piano learning is not on the right track, and it is difficult to see a natural loss caused by the difficulty of piano learning. In the interviews, parents rarely mentioned that their children gave up learning because the piano was too difficult or boring, and more often gave up when their children were not tired of the piano.

"Little to junior high" is the most important watershed on the road of piano learning. If piano children continue to learn piano after entering primary school, most of them will be terminated in the upper grades of primary school, when they are facing the "junior high school". Xiaowen started playing the piano at the age of 5 and played until the fifth grade. There are also some parents who terminate their children's piano learning in the lower grades of primary school in order to sprint to "small to junior high school". Xiaomei has just entered the third grade this year and has been learning piano for more than 4 years, but she stopped learning piano because the school curriculum was gradually tight. But Xiaomei's parents decided to let Xiaomei resume classes and wanted her to finish the seventh grade. She also knows very well that she can no longer continue to learn piano in junior high school, and only after the seventh grade exam can she basically master the skills of the piano, and it will not be a pity to give up at this time.

When they enter junior high school, most piano children will stop their piano studies. There are very few people who are still learning piano in junior high school. Among the interviewees in this article, Xiaoru is the only one who insists on learning piano after studying in junior high school, and she regards the piano as a kind of adjustment to her studies. Xiaoru's parents said:

Our daughter is now in her third year of junior high school, and she was still studying during the winter vacation, but because she was busy with the start of school, she stopped now. I want to wait for this time to pass and then go to the teacher's place. When I got to junior high school, I didn't have much time to practice, but when I was in elementary school, I could still practice every day, but when I got to junior high school, I would practice once before class, and at most once a week in the middle, not every day. There are also children in the class who learn musical instruments like this, but now they basically don't play anymore, and she is the only one who is still taking this class. I don't practice for more than half an hour every day.

From these stories, it can be seen that the piano training practice of middle-class parents in Shanghai is closely related to the selection of their children's piano education, and they will take the initiative to suspend their children's piano learning when they are under pressure to go on to higher education. The original intention of parents to choose piano enlightenment may have nothing to do with schoolwork, but the piano is gradually squeezed in the process of children's schoolwork. As Xiaoru's parents lamented, "Piano is still the most learned, but there are really not many people who persist until the end." There are also some parents who see the dilemma of the piano early on, and do not consider enrolling their children in interest classes for elegant arts such as piano from the beginning. Xiaowen's mother described her daughter's classmates as follows: "In fact, many students are actually full on weekends now, so there may be people who go to musical instrument training classes again, but there are certainly not many." ”

(2) Disappointing piano investment

The root cause of the large loss of piano children lies in the disadvantageous position of piano learning in the selection mechanism for further education. In Shanghai's nine-year compulsory education stage, the teaching quality of private schools is more convincing to parents than public schools, the vast majority of private schools are selected through cultural examinations, and there is no direct reward mechanism for piano ability. In this environment, piano learning has become a useless hobby and dispensable because of its low return on education. Parents saw this very clearly, and Xiaolin's parents said frankly: "When we were learning piano at that time, it had nothing to do with going to school, and at that time, Shanghai's policies were already very clear, and everything else was useless." "Parents take this into account even before their children go to school. Although Xiao Ming's private kindergarten at that time opened a piano interest class, the kindergarten teacher told the parents at the time, "Playing the piano is useless for further education", and then most of the children in the class gave up piano learning.

In the eyes of parents, the disadvantageous position of the piano in the selection of higher education makes it meaningless to take up spare time to practice. Parents constantly stress that their children don't have time to practice the piano, even as a hobby. Piano practice may be basically coped with in the lower grades of elementary school, but it is difficult to practice every day after the upper grades, "only occasionally on weekdays and more on weekends". Although it only takes about half an hour a day to practice the piano to keep them interested, parents feel that their children are already overwhelmed and the piano seems to have little "value", so they are reluctant to add such a burden.

On the contrary, the vast majority of their children's free time is occupied by after-school cram classes. Compared with the dilemma of piano, extracurricular cram schools are favored by parents because of their higher return rate on further education selection. Students often participate in this kind of cram school not to "make up for the difference", but to "cultivate excellence", to learn the subject knowledge in advance, in order to have an advantage in the future selection of higher education. Xiao Lin started practicing piano in kindergarten and passed the seventh grade, but stopped when she was in junior high school and gave way to a physics extracurricular cram school. Xiaolin's mother reluctantly pointed out that the current extracurricular tutoring for primary and secondary school students is "like chicken blood":

Now all the children are learning early outside, our children are now in the first year of junior high school, and the four junior high school textbooks in the physics class outside have been learned except for the electrical part. But we're not fast yet, and half of our classmates have already completed the second round. The first round of what we are learning now is the foundation, it is said that it is the foundation, but the learning is higher and more difficult than the high school entrance examination, and the second round will be reported in the summer vacation, I have already asked, it is the content of the self-recruitment examination. So (the piano) certainly can't go any further. She herself is willing to attend these extracurricular classes, and she thinks that she wants to go, and the information about these classes is told to me by herself, maybe in this atmosphere, everyone is more demanding, and she will come back and say: 'Mom, so-and-so classmate is making up lessons at the teacher's, and I will also go.' More than half of her classmates are studying physics outside, and she is in a hurry to go.

The fierce competition in the selection of private schools has also made the piano more and more unpopular with parents. In order to recruit students with better conditions, private junior high schools in Shanghai will open some tutoring classes for students in the fourth and fifth grades, commonly known as the "Primary 5 class". Since attending the "Primary 5 class" can have a certain advantage in the "junior high school", families who wish to enter this school will send their children to these classes. Therefore, in the lower grades of primary school, parents will enroll their children in some extracurricular cram classes to enhance their advantages in the selection of the "Primary 5 class". Xiao Lin's father works in a university, and the private junior high school will give a certain preferential place, which makes her avoid going to the "primary five class", but Xiao Lin still gave up the piano in the fifth grade of primary school, and her parents tutored Xiao Lin by themselves, and finally Xiao Lin was admitted to this junior high school, and began to participate in extracurricular tutoring at the same time. Although Xiaolin's parents regret their daughter's giving up the piano, they are very determined that their daughter will go to cram school:

Originally, I wanted to take the test (piano) again when I was in the preparatory class (i.e., the sixth grade, author's note...... It's a pity, if I had persisted at that time, I could have done this thing. But at that time (piano) and going to school had nothing to do with it, so I didn't do it anymore, it was just a hobby, and I still forgot about it after all considerations, because it still takes a lot of time to practice, and I do my homework very late every day, and it is more difficult to find time to practice. ...... And now there are a lot of parents who take their children to cram schools, and we also go to them. In the past few years, it has changed a lot, everyone is out in early class, and many of my daughter's classmates have already studied physics outside, so we can't sit still, and let her take up physics, mathematics or something in the morning, and the weekend time is basically occupied. Basically everything will be out in the morning.

Of course, parents not only see the uselessness of the piano in the selection mechanism for further education, many parents believe that the piano has cultivated some important qualities, such as steadfastness, perseverance, perseverance, perseverance, tempering will and other keywords are often mentioned in parent interviews. Xiaowen's parents believe that the piano has cultivated their daughter's perseverance and perseverance very well, he said:

"Getting a new score from the beginning of the breakup practice, to barely being able to string it up, to mastering it, and then to being able to play it emotionally later, I think it's also good for her to exercise, to do things with perseverance, and you can't say that you will back down when you encounter difficulties. ”

Parents also believe that these personality traits are encouraged and rewarded in the current school system, which can subtly promote their children's academic performance. However, this subtle influence is obviously not as effective as the cram school, in the face of the huge pressure of going to school, the use is divided into "priorities", and the piano as an educational investment is slow to take effect, so it has to give way.

From the reasons given by parents for giving up the piano, it can be further seen that they do not only regard piano learning as a kind of taste cultivation, but also measure it together with extracurricular cram schools, and its return on investment depends on the role in the selection process. Compared with extracurricular cram schools, piano has a low rate of return and slow results, so it needs to give way to extracurricular cram schools with higher returns. It is true that the piano can develop good personal character traits, but it is a matter of "priority" and progression. Xiao Lin's parents sighed like this:

"Now I have four classes in language, mathematics, foreign language, and physics, and the weekend time is basically full...... Extracurricular classes, such as English and mathematics, have a lot of homework, and playing the piano is unrealistic, and high school will definitely be busier and more unrealistic. ”

(3) Helpless piano exams

Another evidence that parents regard piano learning as an evaluation criterion for educational return is their attitude and practice towards piano grading. The piano grading system is well known to all the parents in the interview, and in the interview, each parent will take the initiative to give the information "my child has passed the ×× level" when providing the basic information of their children's piano learning. Although most parents say that the piano exam is done in consultation with their children, they regard the exam as a necessary stage of piano learning. As Xiaowen's parents said: "After studying for so many years, her classmates are also taking the test, she knows it." Parents also said that the examination is not about the level, but only the measurement and affirmation of piano ability, and can become the motivation to continue to work hard, because "I don't want my child to take the road of professional piano". However, judging from their overall arrangement and time planning for the piano exam, the exam is not a measure of piano ability, as parents ostensibly claim, but has vague and potentially useful educational returns.

In the "junior high school" stage, the piano certificate may still give the child a certain advantage in the school selection. Xiao Ming's parents made it clear that Xiao Ming had successfully obtained the piano grade 8 certificate before, and was admitted to a top public junior high school in the city with the help of the piano. Xiao Ming's own grades are also very good, enough to go to a good private junior high school. Since the selection of special students in public junior high schools was earlier than the enrollment of private junior high schools, I went to try it and was admitted. Xiao Ming's parents are also glad that their son's piano learning "came in handy".

However, there are only a handful of cases like Xiao Ming's direct success through piano certificates. Even if some junior and senior high schools in Shanghai have orchestras, they need to recruit students with instrumental music foundation, mainly orchestral music and percussion, and basically no school recruits piano students. The vast majority of families are also aware of this, and they do not expect the piano to be used as a stepping stone, but as a sign of spare time in schoolwork, a symbol of their children's comprehensive competitiveness, which may bring certain advantages in school selection. Xiaowen was in the fifth grade last year, passed the sixth grade of piano, and was facing a junior high school and planned to choose a private school. Xiaowen's mother commented that although her daughter's examination process follows the rules of piano learning, it is almost useless in further education:

There are some schools, not all of them...... It may feel that in addition to language, mathematics, and other aspects of your work, you should be good at it, and if you bring a little bit of art, he will feel that your child has more than enough energy to learn, not only reading, but also other aspects. From this point of view, the tenth level must be taken down. Like our sixth-level out, we can only say that you can play the piano, and it has no impact on going to school, because today's children have a lot of ten-level exams.

As Xiaowen's parents said, the effect of the piano certificate on the ambiguity of further education depends on the level of the piano exam, which is generally at least grade 8 and preferably grade 10 (the highest level of amateur piano) to be useful. But it is also extremely difficult for a piano child to reach grade 8 before the fifth grade of primary school. The difficulty of piano grade 10 is usually suitable for piano students who have practiced piano for at least 8 years in junior high school and above. Grade 5 piano children, even if they start piano initiation in kindergarten class, are only suitable for the difficulty of the examination at this age level is only level 7, and the children who are extremely talented or very hard working may reach the level of level 8. However, if this natural progress is followed, the piano certificate will not have any effect in the selection of junior high school students. Therefore, some parents will choose to let their children quickly increase the difficulty, intensify practice, and pass grade 10 in the fifth grade, so that it may be helpful in going on to higher education. Xiaowen's parents illustrated this situation with the example of their daughter's classmate Xiao Han, who started the piano in the kindergarten class and passed the piano grade 10 exam in the summer vacation of the fourth grade. In addition to the piano, Xiao Han also received an accordion certificate. Xiaowen's parents explained that Xiaohan's parents should have planned to let their children enter a certain type of private school that values art, because although she has conducted Olympiad tutoring, her grades cannot win awards, so she plans to stand out in art and cater to some junior high schools that value this kind of ability. "Anyway, each family takes a different path according to the different characteristics of their children," she said. ”

Not only do parents measure the value of the piano certificate in terms of the rate of return on further education, but the preparation process for the piano exam is also full of test-taking implications. The timing of the piano exam is very clear, and the exam organizer will distribute the repertoire of the current year's exam in mid-May, and each level is two scale arpeggios and three prescribed pieces. Piano teachers can generally get about two prescribed pieces in advance around April, so that children can start practicing in advance, and they need to practice intensively for about three months from getting the score to the exam. During the preparation period, levels below level 8 generally require about two hours of practice per day, and levels above level 8 generally require about three hours of practice per day.

For the vast majority of families interviewed, piano practice focused on the three months leading up to the exam. Even for a small number of families, piano practice is only a three-month summer activity, just for the exams. Xiao An is in the first year of junior high school this year, and he just passed the eighth grade piano exam in the summer vacation of the fifth grade. He didn't practice piano during his school days, and his spare time was occupied by coursework and extracurricular cram classes, but only last summer in the summer of last year, he went to art school to spend seven or eight hours a day practicing exam repertoire. Xiao An's parents did not continue to let him practice piano after he entered junior high school, and said: "After entering junior high school, (piano exams) are basically pre-exam raids. "A piano exam is only organized once a year, and only one level can be taken at a time. For many piano children who quickly reach the piano level 10, their piano practice mode is for the purpose of grading, only focusing on practicing the repertoire of the exam, and constantly skipping grades in order to quickly take the exam. These families plan piano learning with the logic of entrance exams, with the ultimate goal of taking the exam, practicing desperately for the repertoire to be examined, and practicing less or even no practice if they don't take the exam.

As one of the representatives of high art, the cultivation of the appreciation ability of the piano is a long and gradual accumulation process. A piano certificate obtained by assault practice may have an advantage in school selection, but it is not conducive to the cultivation of taste. A high school homeroom teacher gave this example:

In the previous military training for freshmen in high school, a theatrical evening should be organized in the grade. At that time, we looked through the students' resumes and found that there was a classmate in the class who was a piano grade 10, so we asked him if he could perform at the military training gala. He said no, we said that we didn't need to prepare the music by ourselves, gave him a copy of Liang Zhu's score, (asked him) if he could go on stage after practicing for two weeks, he said that he couldn't practice, he couldn't read the score, and now he didn't know how to play the piano.

In general, a student who has passed Grade 10 should be confident that he or she will be able to practice a score of moderate difficulty in two weeks. Perhaps the student was ashamed to go on stage, but if it was true that he could not read the new score and was not very good at playing the piano, then it can be inferred that the piano practice did not enable him to acquire the ability and skills to appreciate high art, but only to complete the task of teaching the examination. It is possible that the parents let their children learn the piano, and after they have completed the 10th grade and completed the task, they will throw it aside. From this point of view, piano learning and taste cultivation are contrary to each other.

To sum up, for middle-class families in Shanghai, piano learning is measured by educational returns, and the piano level is converted into a certificate that reflects the comprehensive ability of the children. Extracurricular activities need to be converted into vouchers to form a resume for your child. The richer the resume, the more it can reflect its comprehensive ability in the school selection. Not only that, but it is possible to gain an advantage in the selection of higher education by taking the exam ahead of time. Therefore, piano learning is for the purpose of examination, and piano practice is mainly in the form of pre-examination assault. Although the returns of piano education are not clear, parents still pursue the possible educational returns when planning their children's piano learning.

▍Summary and discussion

This paper uses the attitudes and practices of middle-class parents in Shanghai towards piano learning to understand the cultivation strategies of cultural capital in the context of Chinese Chinese. Chinese parents regard academic achievement as the core quality of intergenerational mobility, and piano learning is not to cultivate class taste, but to measure the return of education. Since schools select students based on standardized test content, piano ability does not have an advantage in the exam, and many parents take the initiative to give up their children's piano learning and choose extracurricular cram schools for their children with higher educational returns. Continuing to study piano is not to cultivate the ability to appreciate fine art, but to regard the examination as the goal of piano learning, and to pursue vague and possible educational returns, so as to bring some possible advantages to children at the level of "small to junior high school".

This raises questions about the ability to appreciate elegant art as a class taste in the study of cultural capital. Most of the existing studies refer to Bourdieu's division of cultural capital into forms (embodiment, objectification, and institutionalization) to see its impact on class inequality. The analysis of this paper argues that in the middle and Chinese contexts, the goal of cultivating high artistic ability is not the inheritance of class taste in the sense of Bourdieu, but is measured by the return of education. Then, in the process of intergenerational mobility and reproduction, cultural capital is not only different in form, but also in content, which may have different effects on inequality due to differences in the returns to education.

The conclusions of this paper also challenge the idea of class solidification. An important feature of the "fractured society" proposed by Sun Liping is that the mobility of different classes is becoming more and more difficult, and different generations have formed a flow logic. However, this paper finds that the middle class in Shanghai still follows the intergenerational mobility logic of "learning and excelling", and even the cultivation of the ability to appreciate fine art is still evaluated by the return of education. The logic of intergenerational mobility of middle-class families is not fundamentally different from that of the working class, nor is it fundamentally different from that of the peasant class.

Of course, this article also has certain shortcomings. It is difficult to ensure the representativeness of the interview study, and it is difficult to cover the situation of all the families of piano children, and it is hoped that the analysis based on a large representative sample can test the conclusions of this paper. In addition, the study based on Shanghai is not representative of the national situation. The main stage of elimination in Shanghai is the high school entrance examination, and the students with more backward grades basically have no chance to enter the learning stage of ordinary high schools, and the competition for higher education is more obvious, and there are certain differences between the school systems of other provinces, which still need to be tested by further empirical research.

Chinese parents' educationally rewarding cultural capital cultivation strategies are in stark contrast to American parents. American parents value professional strengths more than academic strengths. Friedman summarized fostering competitiveness as a core value of intergenerational mobility for middle-class parents in the United States. By comparing and summarizing three popular competitive extracurricular activities in the United States, ballet, chess, and soccer, she found that middle-class parents do not send their children to participate in these activities to get into college, but to develop their children's ability to adapt to competition, which she sees as a core quality for success in the future workplace. In order to adapt to competition, children need to understand the importance of winning, cope with failures and learn from them, arrange their time wisely, behave in a stressful environment, and calmly adapt to the opinions and evaluations of others in public. Through these competitive extracurricular activities, these qualities can be cultivated well, and they can prove their worth in future competitions and achieve success.

The conclusions of this paper can help us understand the current situation of Chinese parents who are more eager to go to after-school tuition classes in the context of the round of "burden reduction orders". Guided by the logic of intergenerational mobility, Chinese parents tend to enroll their children in high-quality schools at an early stage, in order to gain an advantage in later school selection. Education is a knockout race that needs to be won at the starting line. Educational returns have become the selection criterion for all extracurricular activities, and the cultivation of high art is no exception, and it is also involved in the competition for early childhood education.