1. Introduction

The literature discussed many immigrant youngsters using Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital [1]. Indeed, Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital has the potential to shed light on many aspects of the life of immigrant children as they navigate school [2]. Therefore, Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital was chosen because of its widespread use in studying the educational experiences and life chances of non-western/non-native students in different parts of the world. Additionally, Bourdieu’s cultural capital might prove useful in analysing some little-known previous texts about non-native students [3]. Griffin and Glover [4] argue that cultural capital theory is an important theory to use in investigating the role of cultural resources in the educational achievement and social integration of immigrant children. Consequently, this review looks at the application of cultural capital theory to the study of the educational progression of immigrant children and, more specifically, how cultural capital impacts upon their academic and social adaptation. In addition, this review uses systematic analysis to analyse existing literature, and through screening, identifies core literature that supports this study, thereby increasing attention.

The key questions guiding this literature review include how the literature on immigrant children adopts the theory of cultural capital? What are the main conclusions drawn from the application of this theoretical framework in research? In addition, what existing research gaps in this field are worth further exploration? By exploring these issues, this review aims to deepen the understanding of the role of cultural capital theory in the education of immigrant children.

This article is divided into 5 parts. The citation section briefly introduces the core issues and article structure to be explored in this study. Then, in the literature review, previous scholars' research on cultural capital theory and habitus theory in immigrant groups is discussed. In the methodology section, the main steps of using system analysis method in this article are elaborated. Under the PRISMA framework, the core literature to be studied in this article is identified and interpreted; Next, summarize the results of the article, and finally, discuss the conclusion of the article.

2. Literature review

2.1. The concept of cultural capital

The concept of cultural capital was first introduced in 1970 by Pierre Bourdieu, who described cultural capital as non-financial assets used by individuals or groups for social and economic gain. These assets can be transformed into social and economic advantages under certain conditions [5]. Bourdieu classifies cultural capital into three forms. The embodied state is acquired through a process of socialisation and involves an individual's knowledge, skills and education; this capital is non-transferable and closely associated with the individual [5, 6]. On the other hand, the objectified status pertains to concrete cultural objects, such as books and artifacts. Meanwhile, institutionalized status refers to the recognition of cultural objects through the contributions of society's institutional capacities; an example is educational institutions, such as degree bulletins [7].

Cultural capital theory has been frequently utilized to analyze immigrant children's performance in school and the social exclusion they confront [8-10]. The purpose of this theory is examined through a qualitative lens known as the “Lareau tradition,” which examines how family strategies align with institutional rewards in the educational setting [11, 12]. It uses the core features of Lareau’s parenting style [13] to focus on how “working-class” and “disadvantaged” households in the UK interacted with school, they used secondary data analysis with excellent case studies where they were able to understand these mothers’ involvement within secondary education and that they showed frustration, powerlessness and have excluded from secondary school. Scholars claim that the cultural capital research approach is useful for understanding how small, everyday social interactions shape immigrant children's education and integration [14]. For example, previous research has found that limited money and cultural factors, such as language proficiency and social norms, are two main causes of educational disadvantage of immigrant children in the host society [15, 16]. Furthermore, the paper discussed the findings of a study on whether and how immigrant children's cultural capital may be increased through education and community involvement to improve social and educational integration [2, 15]. As a result, the literature allows for a more in-depth examination of how the cultural capital theory can explain the lives of immigrants in their home country, as well as how that capital can be converted into real social benefits across various social and educational environments [1, 17].

2.2. The concept of habitus

The habitus is described by Bourdieu [18] as a durable and transformable system of dispositions that is synthesized by past experiences and thus provides a matrix of perception, appreciation and action. It flows from the process of socialization and the environment in which individuals are subject to internalization [4], which habits form throughout a long period of time as a social convention and inequality [19, 20]. The habitus also shows the persistence of social practices, which are not only represented in everyday practices, but also design the long-term social structure [21]. With a particular focus on the social adaptation of immigrants, this research has shown that social practices realized through habitus are constantly grounding immigrant’s social location and occupational options even in different social environments and cultural contexts [22]. This durability not only leaves out some social practices and inequalities but also may restrict possibilities of social change and individual mobility, thus helping maintain the existing social order and power distribution [4, 23]. The study of habitus can contribute to a better understanding of what allows social inequality to be sustained in society and how long-established patterns might be broken through education and social policy [10, 24].

Habitus has been represented in both qualitative and quantitative research. In the quantitative research, habitus is looked at like something that can be measured, which is how researchers predict habitus (educational values or parental expectations) [25, 26]. Besides, the study was quantitative and found that the mother’s education habitus directly affected their students’ performances at school [27]. Zipin et al. [28] looked at how visions of education in marginalized places related to cultural capital and habitus. They found that cultural capital and habitus both related to students’ academic performances and career aspirations. Likewise, Gaddis [29] found similar results in his study between cultural capital and academic efficiency with habitus being a mediating variable. Additionally, habitus is applied in qualitative research to discover how people react or think differently in different social circumstances like by frying their experiences, and social change [30]. Finally, Ma and Wu [8] study discovered that Asian immigrant children and women staying in South Korea primarily sustain their habit to thoughtless inertia, and they also made some adaptations in changing their media habits, motivation and way of reading. They also discuss how immigrant children and families navigate social systems with habitual inertia, as well as how they might adapt to new circumstances in various social and educational settings. How supplemental education might help immigrant children's cultural capital and academic success in school [31]. The importance of cultural capital and habitus in the integration of immigrants into new social structures is also noted [31, 32].

3. Methodology

3.1. Research design and PRISMA principle

This study aims to do a systematic review of using cultural capital theory by Bourdieu to study the very complex group of immigrants, so the selection of literature is of vital importance. This study followed the process framework of PRISMA (The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analytics) to screen relevant literature and conduct a systematic analysis of the selected literature. PRISMA involves four steps in the process of selecting literature: identification, screening, evaluation, and integration. It is a research paradigm that conducts detailed screening and integration of literature. The advantage of this method is that it can improve the transparency of literature collection and ensure the credibility of research results.

3.2. Literature search and inclusion criteria

Firstly, this study uses the Web of Science core collection, the major international literature index database, as core literature source; Secondly, using (CULTURAL CAPITAL * HABITUS) as the search formula, topic searches were conducted in the Web of Science core collection. There was no restriction on the start time in both databases, and the end time was set to April 2024.

Literature Inclusion Criteria should be as followed:

Figure 1: Identification of studies via databases

The types of literature can include qualitative research, quantitative research, case studies, interdisciplinary research, and other published or accepted academic journal articles, degree theses, conference papers.

The research topic needs to involve the following keywords or their combinations explicitly or implicitly in the literature: "Bourdieu", "cultural capital", "immigration", "adaptation", "educational achievement" and other core keywords.

The literature needs to explore in detail the application, impact, or evaluation of Bourdieu's cultural capital theory in immigration research, including but not limited to the impact of cultural capital on immigrant social adaptation, educational achievement, occupational mobility, and other aspects.

Original research design should be cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies, experimental studies, mixed method studies, etc. And if it is a quantitative analysis, the sample size should be at least 30 to ensure the statistical significance of the research results.

The detailed screening process should be followed in the Figure 1 above. Following the literature search, this paper identified a total of 597 relevant literature data in the database. Subsequently, the literature was screened by analysing the type and availability of the literature, followed by an initial screening of the literature by reading the titles, abstracts and keywords of the literature, and finally, the literature was screened and retained based on the core content of the literature, with a total of 581 pieces of literature excluded that did not meet the inclusion criteria, and 16 pieces of remaining literature retained.

3.3. Code scheme and analysis

This paper was based on selected literature, which was intensively read, and then the coding scheme for this paper was developed based on structured and segmented categorization of article themes to achieve a consistent and targeted analysis of the literature. The paper divided the themes into three broad categories, such as immigrant integration and cultural capital, education and cultural capital and conceptual analysis. For details, refer to Table 1.

Table 1: Thematic analysis of literature

In the realm of immigrant interrogation and cultural capital, some important phenomena were revealed, as they used Bourdieu's theory of social and cultural capital to jointly investigate immigration experiences in different contexts. They conducted in-depth research on the challenges and strategies faced by immigrants, such as boarding practices, career integration, media consumption, cultural loss, language barriers, and family dynamics. At the heart of these accounts is how immigrants traverse intricate landscapes of adaptation and integration. Here, gaining and negotiating various forms of capital, along with getting accustomed to how things are done is vital for a successful settlement.

Furthermore, when it comes to education and cultural capital, several literatures aim to investigate the complex relationships between cultural capital, education, immigration, and social mobility. The works believe that cultural variables interact with structural elements, and they highlight the intricacy of how immigrants and their children pursue school and attain educational success. Furthermore, the works demonstrate that immigration can have a wide range of social implications for individuals and communities, which, in addition to other factors (such as higher productivity in the service sector), can modify immigrants' cultural capital. Bourdieu's conceptual framework, such as cultural capital, habitus, and power, serve as the foundation for the analysis, with each providing a unique and informative viewpoint on educational levels in various social situations, immigration experiences, and cultural formations.

Some studies are just theoretical framework studies, which use Bourdieu's theory to better comprehend the complexities of immigration and cultural capital. It was critical that culture capital included the entire concept rather than picking and choosing. They did an excellent job of emphasizing Bourdieu's main ideas, such as habitus and cultural capital, and this added several dimensions to understanding the immigrant's experience, relationship to their place of origin, and the larger social and power dynamics of society as a whole when migrating. By considering these literatures, researchers can better grasp how cultural capital theory describes the experiences of immigrants in the communities where they live.

4. Results

Analyse the social capital theory of the second generation of immigrant children mainly in three aspects, first of all, the family background and cultural capital. Through social and cultural capital theory to analyse, this paper reveals the impact of cultural heritage, values, language environment on the learning of the second generation of immigrants. The family passed the cultural capital include education attitude, language environment, cultural tradition, etc. [33]. These factors have a significant impact on the second generation of immigrants' attitude to life and academic performance. The second is to analyse the relationship between society and cultural capital. It analyses the impact of the social relationship and the resources of the second generation of immigrants on their learning. According to Akua-Sakyiwah [30], cultural capital is obtained through social ties such as social repute, available social resources, and so on, and it influences the performance and development of second-generation immigrants in the learning process. The third aspect is educational environment and cultural capital, which examines the school environment, the second-generation of immigrants in the learning the new setting, and the impact, According to Waters [34], the school provides resources such as education, cultural identity, teacher-student relationships, and so on to help the second generation of immigrants learn more effectively.

After reviewing the above research analysis, the key finding of this research lies in an intricate exploration of immigrant development in new settlement using Bourdieu's concept social and cultural capital. The main social challenges immigrants face from are- family, boarding practices, occupational integration, media and technology, bilingualism and cultural loss, and language [28, 35, 36]. The underlying common thread throughout these narratives I believe is how to survive in highly complex environments where the very acquisition and negotiation of various forms of capital, and corresponding dispositions, is a necessity for settlement success. Furthermore, research on education and cultural capital also explores complicated relationships between cultural capital, education, immigration, and social mobility [17, 31, 37]. These studies highlight the related dimensions of cultural capital Bourdieu has examined in terms of cultural capital and cultural habitus, the ways in which such cultural frames become means and hurdles for immigrants' educational achievements and outcomes. The Bourdieu theoretical framework proves useful for understanding immigrants' experiences, how immigrants are related to where they came from, and extended social dynamics proceeding upon their immigration. In summary, these studies provide a comprehensive understanding of how cultural capital theory explains how immigrants live in their place of residence.

There is still a significant research gap in the current study of immigration. Firstly, there is a lack of in-depth research on the impact of gender differences, and whether there is a developmental gap between the second generation of immigrants to be studied between different genders has not been explored; Secondly, research on long-term effects has not yet been conducted, and there is insufficient understanding of whether the development of such immigrants will have long-term effects over time, as well as the specific nature of these effects. Thirdly, intervention measures for immigrant development: research is needed to determine possible intervention measures to mitigate or mitigate the potential negative effects of this phenomenon.

5. Discussion and conclusion

Based on this paper, research on the theory of cultural capital among children of immigrants can be expanded on the current foundation. Firstly, it can compare the development of social capital among children of immigrants in different countries or regions, and explore the impact of factors such as culture, history and institutions on social cultural capital [32]. With the continued development of information technology, research on digital cultural capital can also be sustained, examining how children of immigrants build and use social networks to accumulate cultural capital in the digital age, and the impact of digital social platforms on the formation of cultural capital. Thirdly, the relationship between cultural capital and the mental health of immigrant children can be investigated in depth from the perspective of cultural capital and mental health, including the impact of social support on mental health and the role of cultural capital in reducing mental health problems.

Some suggestions are also proposed for the actions of stakeholders. For the government, appropriate legal frameworks and policies should be provided to ensure the protection of the rights of immigrants and their children, and to provide them with equal education and employment opportunities [4]. At the same time, immigration policies can also be formulated and implemented, respecting domestic laws while considering the needs and contributions of immigrant communities for heterogeneous treatment [38]. Finally, as claimed by Waters [34] investment can be made in infrastructure and services for immigrant communities to help them integrate into the new social and cultural environment. For immigrants and their children, adhering to the laws and regulations of the destination country and respecting local culture and customs are the most basic principles [39]. At the same time, they also need to actively integrate into the local community, participate in social activities, and strive to learn the local language and culture. And while respecting their own culture and traditions, they also need to use the knowledge and skills they have learned to contribute to society.

There are also some limitations in this article, such as sample limitations. This study only used a library of one database, which may be limited by specific sample sizes, sample sources, or sample representativeness, which may affect the universal applicability of the research results. There are also theoretical limitations. Due to the use of specific theoretical frameworks, this study lacks comprehensive consideration of other possible explanations or theoretical viewpoints, which are areas that need to be further explored in future research.