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• Participation in Shadow Education in Church- and State-Maintained Schools: The Role of Cultural and Social Capital

  60-75

  Gabriella Hegedűs

  Ildikó Csépes

  Views:

  169

  Research on shadow education is often justified based on Bourdieu’s theory of capital as it is assumed to contribute to social inequalities. This paper focuses on the role of cultural and social capital and on the differences between state- and church-maintained schools in the North-Eastern parts of Hungary. Using a convenience sample and our own constructed measurement tool, a quantitative survey of secondary school language learners (N=711) was conducted to explore the relationship between the effectiveness of supplementary private language tutoring as well as the cultural and social capital of language learners in cross-sectoral comparisons. Our results highlight the positive correlation between the highest educational attainment of the mother, the participation rate in shadow education and language learners’ achievement.  In our study, language learners whose mothers had a higher education level demonstrated greater efficiency, in terms of academic achievements. Despite being less successful in passing language examinations as a result of a lower social composition in denominational grammar schools, language learners could count on a higher level of support both from their language teachers - who were better able to support their students to progress at their own pace - and from their classmates and families, demonstrating that social capital had a compensating effect on their learning trajectories.

• Favouring Middle-and Upper-Class Students? The Structure and Process of Attending China’s Selective Universities

  1-16

  Xie Ailei

  Huan Kuang

  Yanbi Hong

  Views:

  452

  Research suggests the increasing influence of family socioeconomic status, as measured by parents’ income and occupations, in access to Chinese higher education. Yet, the literature remains inconclusive about the extent to which the social background of rural and urban students is associated with academic and social performance at elite universities. We address this limitation by looking at the academic and social success of representative samples of first- and second-year students enrolled at four Chinese elite universities. Our aim is to understand the characteristics that students from both urban and rural environments bring with them and how those characteristics bear on academic and social performance in university. We found an overrepresentation of students from middle- and upper-class backgrounds in both urban and rural student groups. The fact that the process indicator of cultural capital has a direct association with social success suggests students from urban areas exhibit traits valued in the selective university environment.

• How Do University Students Get Relevant Information?

  67-79

  Dóra Szabó

  Views:

  313

  The web and learning have evolved parallel as technological changes have influenced teaching and learning processes. In this study, I intend to extend this parallel with two other dimensions, namely, human 1.0-3.0 and influencer 1.0-3.0. The concepts are closely related to how the online world became popular abroad and what their impact is on learning and education. Thus, the question, “what is the significance of social media, and of its latest, most popular actors, of the “work” of influencers (which can be interpreted as fake news) in the lives of students in higher education?”, is also a very pertinent issue to touch on. Its involvement in our lives is ever growing and very often influences our media literacy. This gives us even more reason to look into social media’s impact.

  However, our main goal is to find answers to the following questions:
  • What opportunities does the digital toolkit give to students? What kind of digital literacy do students think they need to thrive in the job market?
  • To what extent does the ICT literacy of pedagogical students differ from that of other students (lawyer, economics, doctor, technical)? What form of cognitive development is used for lifelong learning?
  • To what extent are students’ IT literacy influenced by cultural, material, and family capital?
  • How is information acquisition implemented in education? How conscious is the use of media among university students, and what is their critical attitude?
  • To what extent does online media penetrate the medium of formal-informal and non-formal learning? How does the influencer activity of professional opinion leaders help students to think critically and thoughtfully?

  The sample of the survey is made up of students from the University of Debrecen. From the results we can see, that university students behave differently in the online space, on social media platforms and on messengers than they would elsewhere, thus this affects how they get information. The current situation, the pandemic, clearly demonstrates that advanced digital competence is essential for a confident presence in the online space and advanced critical thinking. Problems of digital inequality and division have surfaced, and the constructed reality mediated by the media is becoming increasingly distorted. During this period, the relationship between the media and media consumers has changed greatly, and the interaction has intensified.