Cultural capital,standardised testing and East Asian education: The transposition of disposition of Taiwanese elite students

Abstract

Cultural capital has been an essential concept for educational stratification research. While several studies suggest that in East Asian educational contexts, cultural capital may exhibit less emphasis on aesthetics, there remains a need for in-depth exploration of such orientation. To fill this gap, this article examines non-aesthetic subspecies of cultural capital by exploring how standardised testing, a predominant educational institution in East Asia, shapes a distinct embodied cultural capital – a pragmatic learning disposition. We examine two cases where Taiwanese academically elite high school students adapt their standardised testing-driven dispositions to distinct contexts: a different activity domain and an alternative educational field. The first explores how elite students transpose the disposition shaped by standardised testing to their participation in rock music activities. Our research reveals that their academic learning experiences fostered a disposition for honing precise exam skills, which influenced the trajectory of their musical taste development, along with the accumulation of technical capital. The second case involves elite students experienced in open-ended mathematics competitions, who later enrol in French preparatory classes for admission to French grandes écoles. These students have difficulty shedding their pragmatic disposition, which is deeply rooted in standardised testing, but hardly suits the French preparatory class. Disposition transposition and its hysteresis effect across contexts can serve as a useful methodological tool for cultural capital studies, enabling an exploration of emerging technical subspecies of cultural capital and the associated pragmatic dispositions, thereby shedding light on the diverse relationships among students’ subspecies of embodied cultural capital.

Introduction

Cultural capital is a pivotal concept in studies of educational stratification. Initially, it was perceived as the aesthetic or educational heritage transmitted from parents to their children, enabling privileged-class students to navigate formal educational systems (Bourdieu, 1984). Researchers have explored the connection between cultural capital and students’ academic achievements, examined the interplay between familial cultural capital and those recognised by educational institutions, and explored diverse variants of cultural capital and their relationships (Davies & Rizk, 2018). When pursuing this research agenda, it is crucial to discern which specific attributes or practices are mutually recognised as cultural capital by students, teachers and parents (Lareau & Weininger, 2003). Their intricacies warrant a more in-depth examination of embodied cultural capital in the form of dispositions that shape habitus. To comprehensively understand different subspecies of (embodied) cultural capital, this article scrutinises how standardised testing, a prevailing institutional practice in East Asian educational contexts, shapes a distinct embodied cultural capital – a highly pragmatic learning disposition.

Standardised testing, often involving multiple-choice questions, aims to offer students identical tasks in uniform settings, streamlines educational administration, and is widely adopted in contemporary education (Grodsky et al., 2008). Its high-stakes nature fosters intense competition and the growth of shadow education (Buchmann et al., 2010; Byun & Park, 2012). Despite its widespread use, the significance of standardised testing in higher education pathways varies by region, influenced by local educational systems and socio-structural conditions. In Western countries, it is one of several assessment methods within systems that allocate emphasis across a broader range of abilities (Chiang, 2022; Karabel, 2005). In East Asian countries, however, standardised testing remains a crucial determinant of students’ progression to the next educational level (Byun & Park, 2012; Kim, 2005). Here, high-stakes exams for prestigious high schools and colleges drive students toward intense pursuit of desired outcomes, sustaining repetitive and mechanical practices, despite complaints from both students and teachers, and occasional resistance from education reformers (Chou, 2016).

Standardised testing’s predominant role in East Asian formal educational systems poses a challenge for sociological studies of education and cultural capital. In these high-stakes assessments, crucial factors for admission to top educational institutions are rapid and accurate replies to questions, leading some scholars to consider that such evaluation could potentially account for the constraints observed in cultural capital research. Specifically, the traditional definition of cultural capital as artistic participation, or ‘soft’ skills, raises questions about its connection to standardised examinations (Byun et al., 2012; Hu & Wu, 2019; Yamamoto & Brinton, 2010). Some studies even suggest that cultural capital might have adverse effects on higher education admission chances (Byun et al., 2012; Yeh, 2015). Considering the conceptual ambiguity and operational challenges associated with cultural capital (Goldthorpe, 2007; Lamont & Lareau, 1988), it is crucial to investigate the attributes that serve as cultural capital in specific contexts (Lareau & Weininger, 2003). However, there is limited research on how students’ learning dispositions, as embodied forms of cultural capital, are shaped by the East Asian educational system (exceptions include Chiang, 2022; Liu, 2020). This article aims to deepen our understanding of (embodied) cultural capital’s different subspecies by exploring disposition(s) shaped by standardised testing and their interplay with different contexts.

Our specific focus is on standardised testing’s impact on senior high school students in Taiwan. Comparable to other East Asian countries, standardised tests are pivotal in determining progression within Taiwan’s educational system, contributing to intense educational competition and the widespread prevalence of shadow education. These assessments, often deemed crucial for admission to elite educational institutions, strongly impact an individual’s path to social mobility and status acquisition. Given their high-stakes nature, they have fundamentally shaped Taiwan’s educational field, where students contend for dominant positions, including admission to elite high schools and top-tier universities. To succeed, high-achieving Taiwanese students must adapt to these testing methods. This adaptation shapes their pragmatic dispositions that extend beyond their academic learning and become transferable to other contexts.

Therefore, our study employs disposition transposition as a methodological tool to explore students’ dispositions derived from their recurrent exposure to competitive standardised testing. We conducted in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations with academically elite Taiwanese high school students, examining two distinct case studies. The first explores how the pragmatic disposition, ingrained in the standardised testing system, shapes these students’ approach when learning to play rock music instruments. This disposition, centred around exam preparation and competition, strongly influences their musical preferences, emphasising technical proficiency. The second case study examines how these students adapt their dispositions, shaped by standardised testing, to a different educational setting. We focus on a group of Taiwanese elite students selected for a French-language programme, preparing them for admission to a French engineering grande école. This investigation reveals the challenges they encounter when they attempt to reconcile their original learning disposition with a new educational field whose fundamental logic conflicts with standardised testing. In our conclusion, we emphasise the significance of transposing dispositions across varied contexts as a methodological tool, enabling an exploration of emerging technical capital and its associated pragmatic dispositions, which may differ from more traditional aesthetic subspecies of cultural capital.

From cultural capital to dispositions: The case of East Asian education

The concept of cultural capital plays a crucial role in studying educational stratification in Western societies, prompting scholars to explore its applicability in other regions. It represents the ‘cultural heritage’ transmitted from parents to children, enabling students from privileged classes to better adapt to their formal educational system (Bourdieu, 1984). Subsequent studies probed the relation between inherited cultural capitals and students’ academic achievements, shedding light on the relationship between educational institutions, embodied cultural capital and dispositions.

Standardised testing’s prevalence in East Asian formal education has generated speculation related to cultural capital studies. Many quantitative studies, following Paul DiMaggio (1982) and John Mohr’s (DiMaggio & Mohr, 1985) framework, have measured cultural capital’s effect, often assessed through art participation, on academic achievement to examine East Asian educational systems, including China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. However, quantifying the embodied cultural capital embedded in students’ lived schooling experience can be challenging. Regional characteristics, such as widespread cram schooling, prevalent standardised assessments, high parental expectations for academic achievement and strong beliefs in the value of academic diligence (Marginson, 2011) often complicate such measurements. While some studies resonate with the proposition that parents’ cultural capital positively impacts children’s educational attainment (e.g. Hu & Yin, 2021; Wu, 2008), standardised testing in these formal educational systems is recognised as one source of inconsistent research findings. For example, research reveals that embodied cultural capital consistently enhances learning skills and motivation, while the impact of objectified cultural capital is constrained by standardised exams in Japan (Yamamoto & Brinton, 2010). Others found that only the objectified form has a positive effect, as embodied forms may not align with the Korean standardised assessment system (Byun et al., 2012). If standardised testing is indeed the source of these inconsistencies, how can we explain them and what role does testing play? To address these questions, we must explore which types of embodied cultural capital are most beneficial within such an assessment system.

Qualitative studies of educational inequality in East Asia have illuminated cultural capital’s embodied aspects. These studies investigate how parents employ their economic and cultural capital to assist their children (Lan, 2014, 2018; Sheng, 2014; Shih, 2011), aligning with Lareau and Weininger’s (2003) suggestion that cultural capital encompasses any cultural resource beneficial in specific contexts; to enhance their children’s educational achievements, parents often mobilise cultural capital in the form of extra-curricular activities and talent development, such as artistic or musical events, or by accumulating ‘Western cultural capital’ through foreign travel. It is noteworthy that both Shih (2011) and Lan (2014) observed that these ‘cultural capital’ forms, particularly their aesthetic aspects or talent development activities, may lose relevance as students progress beyond secondary education when standardised testing becomes crucial. However, their main focus on primary school-level parenting limits further exploration of this irrelevance.

Recent ethnographic studies have significantly contributed to our understanding of contemporary elite education within specific institutional contexts and its connection to shaping particular dispositions and embodied cultural capital (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Khan, 2011). Notably, Muriel Darmon (2013) revisited the field of French preparatory classes of grandes écoles, building upon Pierre Bourdieu’s (1996) classic study, The State Nobility. Her ethnographic work revealed the coexistence of two sets of dispositions in preparatory classes, albeit with varying emphasis across programmes. Students in economic programmes demonstrate stronger ‘pragmatic’ dispositions, focusing on efficient exam preparation, while students in science programmes prioritise the value of knowledge itself, characterised by ‘scientific’ dispositions. In alignment with their methodological focus on the actual schooling experience, Yi-Lin Chiang (2017, 2022) reveals a uni-dimensional status hierarchy among students in Chinese elite secondary education, primarily based on test scores. Interestingly, Bourdieusian taste and cultural consumption hold little relevance in this educational field (Chiang, 2017). Nevertheless, this hierarchical principle significantly shapes students’ perceptions of other status criteria and their future career prospects. When applying to North American universities, these students prioritise SAT scores above all else (Chiang, 2022). Shu-Hung Yeh’s (2015) study of Taiwanese elite high school students reveals a parallel observation. Through interviews with students, Yeh suggests that ‘studying habitus’, characterised by proficient exam skills accumulation, is the dominant form of embodied cultural capital in Taiwan’s education system. Consequently, class-based cultural capital linked to extra-curricular activities and artistic participation, as explored in earlier studies (Lan, 2014, 2018; Shih, 2011) influenced by Lareau (2011), may become obscured by the overwhelming influence of standardised testing.

Their research, which explores students’ experiences in specific institutional contexts, provides a nuanced understanding of the educational field shaped by standardised testing. By examining how students interact, learn and perceive their status within these educational institutions, we can identify the predominant form of embodied cultural capital and its corresponding dispositions. This approach allows us to move beyond conventional, often presumed, definitions of cultural capital (Byun et al., 2012; Yamamoto & Brinton, 2010). Through this research approach, we can begin to unravel the intricate relationship between ‘cultural capital’ and standardised testing in East Asian education. However, a lingering question remains regarding the corresponding forms of cultural capital and dispositions. In Bourdieu’s theoretical framework (as detailed below), one’s habitus develops alongside the accumulation of cultural capital linked to one’s structural position. This habitus typically involves dispositions that are transferable to different contexts, exerting a lasting influence on individuals’ behaviour and decision-making. Yet, as Bernard Lahire suggests, while some dispositions may transfer smoothly to other contexts, others endure minor changes, and still others could not be transferred at all (Lahire, 2003, 2011). How can we ascertain these dispositions’ durability and transferability, as illuminated by the aforementioned studies in the East Asian schooling context? What occurs when these dispositions are transposed into contexts with different field logics? Answers to these questions can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the educational field in non-European contexts. In the following section, we shift our focus to the issue of disposition transposition.

Embodied cultural capital in the light of the transposition of dispositions

Within Bourdieu’s oeuvre, the concepts of field, capital and habitus are closely interconnected. He defined habitus as ‘a system of durable and transposable dispositions which integrate all past experiences’ (1972, p. 261). This concept typically emphasises how individuals, during the socialisation process, incorporate the logic of fields and capital into their bodily dispositions. These dispositions, in turn, constitute an internal structure that guides the actions, preferences and decision-making of social agents (Edgerton & Roberts, 2014). The concept of habitus is often used to emphasise its enduring aspect, particularly in exploring how individuals from privileged backgrounds seamlessly assimilate into social settings dominated by elite circles due to their possession of significant legitimate cultural capital. This advantage often manifests in their early adaptation to educational and workplace environments (see, for example, Friedman & Laurison, 2019; Rivera, 2012). Additionally, the enduring nature of dispositions may result in a ‘hysteresis effect’, when individuals encounter contexts with different logics (Bourdieu, 2000; Wacquant, 2016). The hysteresis effect refers to the mismatch between one’s dispositions and the social conditions in a new field (Bourdieu, 2000; Friedman, 2016), which often occurs during significant life changes, such as social mobility or migration (Strand & Lizardo, 2017).

Empirical research highlights this inconsistency through ‘disposition transposition’, when individuals with dispositions aligned with specific field logics and embodied cultural capital enter fields with different logics, whereby sociologists could examine empirically the interplay between specific disposition(s) and different contextual settings (Carlson & Schneickert, 2021; Friedman, 2016; Lahire, 2003). Recent studies on upward social mobility explore tensions arising from conflicts between individuals’ prior dispositions and those required by their destination class (Friedman, 2016; Friedman & Laurison, 2019; Reay et al., 2009). Similarly, in migration studies, there is a growing emphasis on the ambivalence experienced by individuals when moving to a country with a different status-acquisition system. In such situations, individuals often undergo shifts in their social positions, along with the devaluation of their previously familiar embodied cultural capital (Erel & Ryan, 2019; Kelly & Lusis, 2006). While their exploration of disposition transposition adds complexity to analysis of the interplay between field, capital and habitus, these studies also offer an empirical framework to illuminate the fundamental principles that shape dispositions in various contexts when examined comparatively.

Dispositions involve unconscious tendencies in actions, feelings and thoughts. Identifying these dispositions, however, can be challenging – especially when there is strong alignment between an individual’s disposition and the external social structure, the field’s logic may be taken for granted and prove challenging to discern empirically (Darmon, 2019; Lizardo, 2017). This is particularly evident among individuals from elite backgrounds, who seamlessly adapt to environments aligning with their dispositions, akin to what Bourdieu termed ‘fish in water’ (1996). Conversely, when an individual’s schemes and dispositions, developed in one context, do not fit well within another, the hysteresis effect may occur. Lizardo and Strand refer to this as ‘unstable situations’, arising when the cognitive structure of the social agents and social structure in question do not correspond (2010, p. 216). In such situations, individuals’ dispositions may become more evident, prompting reflection on previously overlooked unconscious or semi-conscious dispositions, or even conscious adaptation to the new contexts (Bourdieu, 2000; Strand & Lizardo, 2017). As shown in the previously mentioned literature concerning habitus ‘outside their original context’ (Friedman, 2016; Lahire, 2011; Reay et al., 2009), an examination of disposition transposition, through individuals’ reflections on adapting to different contexts, enables an empirical exploration of how precisely social actors’ dispositions can persist, or be transferred when they encounter a context with a different field logic. Such a research focus, as we illustrate here, contributes to a more holistic understanding of dispositions and the underlying logic of the field in which these dispositions are acquired.

In what follows, we present two cases to explore how learning dispositions cultivated within the standardised testing system transpose across contexts, including different activity domains and educational settings. Following Muriel Darmon (2013), we term such learning dispositions ‘pragmatic’, since they are derived from and oriented toward achievement through standardised testing itself, rather than the quest for the knowledge per se. Through these cases, we demonstrate how standardised testing has been a significant frame of evaluation that shapes Taiwanese elite students’ everyday practice and perceptions, extending its influence beyond traditional academic environments. This, as illustrated below, contributes to the studies of cultural capital and East Asian education, and the ongoing theoretical debates on dispositions.

Research design

Our research focuses on academically elite students from Taiwan’s most prestigious public senior high schools. Admission to these schools demands exceptionally high scores in a nationally conjoined entrance examination, positioning the interviewees at the top of the senior high school hierarchy. Their success in the entrance examination fostered the development of studying dispositions highly attuned to this system, which heavily relies on standardised testing. These dispositions can be seen as a form of ‘efficient property’ or specific capital, facilitating their admission to the most prestigious schools (Bourdieu, 1996), and securing the dominant positions relative to schools with lower entry requirements.

Our research employs a heuristic comparison of two subsets of academically elite high school students and their disposition transpositions. Dispositions often become more observable when individuals encounter unstable situations where objective conditions diverge from their dispositions (Darmon, 2019; Lizardo, 2017). Therefore, we analyse two cases wherein academically elite students, primarily from upper-middle-class families, transpose their dispositions shaped by standardised testing to different contexts. These dispositions enable them to navigate effectively within an educational system where upward social mobility is heavily dependent upon excelling in high-stakes standardised tests, such as the conjoined entrance examination for universities. These cases are complementary and symmetrical: the former examines transposition between different domains of practice, while the latter focuses on the transfer of dispositions to another educational context characterised by pedagogical principles discordant with standardised testing, yet still within the same domain of practice. These cases represent two ‘unstable situations’, wherein the fundamental dispositions shaped by standardised testing, prevalent in East Asian education, are more distinctly revealed.

Our first case draws on empirical data and analysis from a larger project, including its follow-up study, that examined youth culture and exam-oriented education in Taiwan (Wang, 2019). The data presented here focus on the rock music club at KC High School, Taiwan’s most academically prestigious boys’ high school. This club is renowned for its members’ exceptional musical skills and their strong drive for excellence in both academic and leisure pursuits. Data collection involved participant observation and semi-structured interviews. With permissions obtained through introductions from former students, we gained access to their club space, enabling participant observation in 2012–14. Activities participated in included instrument lessons, club meetings, individual practice, band rehearsals and gigs. Detailed field notes were regularly recorded and analysed inductively. Through prolonged and immersive participant observation, similarities in the underlying logics between students’ musical practice and academic study are identified. This highlighted the relationship between the two spheres in this case study, facilitating an examination of how students transpose their learning disposition into extra-curricular musical activities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in two phases: the original study from 2012 to 2015, and a follow-up study from 2018 to 2023, involving 27 club alumni who graduated high school between 2013 and 2014. The interviews explored the interplay between their experiences in standardised test-based educational progression, family upbringing, musical activities, and their post-high school educational and career pathways.

The second case centres around an international programme that selects Taiwanese high school graduates for enrolment in the competitive French preparatory class of the grande école for engineers (classe préparatoire des grandes écoles d’ingénieur). Initiated by France and Taiwan in 2005, this programme recruits academically elite Taiwanese students who have graduated from ‘gifted education’ programmes in mathematics and science. By 2020, approximately 60 students had joined the programme. During 2019–20, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 programme graduates, including four female alumni. Each interview lasted about 1.5–2 hours and most interviewees were in their twenties or early thirties. Almost all applicants had previously participated in mathematics and science gifted education programmes in Taiwan’s most prestigious high schools, including the school featured in our first case. We contend that students’ mathematical demonstration is influenced by the disposition favoured by standardised testing, to the extent that they initially faced challenges when adapting to a context where this disposition was far from desirable.

All interviews of both cases are recorded, transcribed and anonymised, while data analysis focuses on students’ studying dispositions and their transposition in unstable situations. These circumstances prompted students to reflect consciously or subconsciously on the mismatch between their dispositions and the given context. Their reflections, driven by the specific situations they encountered, enriched the interview-based insights in the second case and provided more refined observations and interviews in the first. Interview transcripts were inductively coded (Charmaz, 2006), encompassing categories such as ‘repetitive and mechanical practice’, ‘learning disposition’, ‘exam skills’, ‘exam preparation’, ‘performances (academic and musical)’, ‘sense of accomplishment’, ‘perception of status’, ‘transposition’, ‘adaptation’, ‘time management’, ‘school ranking’, ‘useful capital’, etc. These codes were devised to capture the nuances of students’ learning dispositions shaped by standardised testing, their relationship to the educational contexts in which they were situated, and their perceptions of transposing their dispositions to different contexts, and the codes can engage with Bourdieusian concepts of capital, habitus/disposition and field.

Ranking musical prowess: Standardised testing and technical proficiency

In Taiwan, school clubs play a vital role in shaping local youth (sub)cultures, due to extended school hours. Student-led rock clubs are ubiquitous in high schools, serving as the major platform where local youth first encounter rock music culture. Students dedicate themselves to acquiring and honing their musical prowess through performing at inter-school events (student gigs and band competitions). Students from the academically elite high schools tend to devote themselves intensively to their rock practices, and their musical performance is often recognised as ‘stronger’ than other schools’ student musicians. Performance excellence in rock activities projects ‘coolness’; the rebellious image and alternative music taste prevalent in rock culture helps students break away from the undesirable role expectations associated with solely focusing on studying (for more on their school subcultures, see Wang, 2019). However, the usual aspects of standardised testing success are paradoxically reflected in how the students engage in rock music activities. They generally focus on learning songs from genres which emphasise technical proficiency – instrumental rock, heavy metal and hard rock are particularly favoured. These students’ rock music selections are marked by instrumental complexity and skill, and thus secure cultural distinction in the youth-culture sphere. Specifically, mastery in instrumental virtuosity shares a similar logic with mastery of the standardised test: both require intensive, repetitive practice to master the key techniques for challenging tasks. Wei, a graduate who played guitar in the club, made the following analogy:

The sense of accomplishment in making a successful guitar cover that contains virtuosic techniques is very similar to the feeling of solving challenging test questions which require excellent exam skills. It makes you feel so good because only very few people can achieve this.

The standardised testing exam format facilitates a more efficient evaluation of students’ performance; knowledge is distilled into a measurable and ‘rankable’ achievement. To succeed in this system, Taiwanese academically elite students concentrate on the test-related contents of exam subjects; those that cannot be distilled into ‘rankable’ testing methods are usually considered less useful, even disadvantageous, when measuring students’ educational achievement (Yeh, 2015). Therefore, knowledge marked by a lower stake in standardised testing is often regarded with disdain by elite students. This disposition is also evident in students’ learning practice when playing instruments and can shape their musical taste’s trajectory. In our fieldwork, we have seen recurrent evidence that students’ musical choices were primarily influenced by technical difficulty rather than musicality. Former club leader Hung, now a commercially successful bass virtuoso in the rock scene, states how his musical taste developed during the learning process:

When I was in junior high, I listened to Britpop bands like Pulp, Blur and Coldplay all the time [. . .] after starting bass in high school, I gradually shifted towards music with more technically challenging bass lines [. . .] As I learned to be familiar with more difficult techniques, I gradually considered Britpop bass to be [. . .] well, too simple, nothing special about their playing techniques [. . .] whenever I saw someone listening to bands like Coldplay or similar artists, I’d often ask ‘Why the hell are you listening to their boring music?’ [. . .] And when asked about my own musical preferences, I always mentioned funk or fusion [genres commonly considered as technically more difficult].

Just as standardised testing focuses elite students’ academic learning on the test-related knowledge acquisition, their musical choices are framed by the technical requirements characterised by competitive standards, so that students compare each other’s instrumental performance through uniform standards. With this framework’s dominance, students position their musical practice in a series of binary oppositions – ‘making progress/falling behind’, ‘strong/weak’ – instead of the enjoyment of the music. Former club member Tsai, who received his MD from Taiwan’s top medical school, describes his club’s instrument-learning practice to be ‘an extension of their learning practice in exam revision and academic competition’. This disposition even framed how they attended rock gigs; they focused on performers’ technique, rather than actually enjoying the performance:

At gigs, we tend to first check things like players’ proper string pressing or other technical issues. We’re always commenting on their technical performance instead of just listening to the music. Our initial reaction to a gig was usually checking for mistakes, rather than appreciating the music or perceiving the musical ideas behind the performance.

In academic learning, successful students must respond to exam questions with exceptional proficiency. This skill is cultivated through test-related knowledge accumulation, repeated practice with mock exams, familiarity with the test environment, and the ability to answer questions swiftly and accurately. This learning process, aimed at excelling in exams, shares a striking resemblance to Friedman and Laurison’s (2019) illustration of the logic in the acquisition of ‘technical capital’. While Bourdieu views technical capital as a ‘particular kind of cultural capital’ (2005, p. 117), Friedman and Laurison further describe this concept as ‘forms of practical expertise, knowledge, know-how’, which can be amassed ‘in a fairly linear fashion by following formalised, rationalised procedures’ (2019, p. 204). Ting, a dentist who played drums during his high school days, emphasises that success in college admission exams hinges on mastering exam-taking strategies through abundant mock tests. These learning patterns are also favourable for acquiring technical proficiency in playing instruments. The process begins with the student playing every note of a musical piece accurately, disciplined by body actions with a metronome, then gradually increasing speed. This process requires intensive dedication, practising only the songs that showcase musical prowess, while emphasising ‘comparable’ dimensions like speed and proficiency until fully mastering the techniques. Many respondents emphasised how their studying habits, developed during exam preparation, laid the foundation for pursuing technical musical proficiency. Guan, for example, now pursuing a PhD at a US Ivy League university, illustrates how these patterns were helpful for instrument learning:

To some extent, this form of testing cultivates a particular learning pattern. It’s quite mechanical, you just sit and read, keep doing things you are familiar with, and keep practising till you can spontaneously give the accurate answers to the questions. This learning pattern certainly helps with instrument practice. You just sit and keep practising until you can play the difficult songs proficiently.

Lin, bassist in a local award-winning indie band, vividly links his learning to play bass to his approach to academic exam preparation during junior high:

Studying for exams and learning instruments, for me personally, kind of just reflect the way I do things. Like when I was studying a chapter, my approach was to keep reading and repeating it until I memorised it [. . .] My textbooks all looked very wrinkled, and I might not even need to understand them. Playing bass was simply the same for me. It’s like, if there’s a difficult riff, I just keep practising it until I’ve got it down cold.

Like most of his high school peers, Lin first accessed rock music after joining the rock club. The formation of his musical taste was mediated by the learning dispositions shaped by standardised testing – technical competition appears to be a built-in principle for his musical activities. Reflecting on this, he noted a strong parallel between his academic study and instrument playing, one which was deeply rooted in his initial lack of musical taste before joining the club:

I didn’t join the rock club out of a specific passion of music, unlike fellow members Sean or Huang. They’ve been into music since junior high, and to me, they were like [. . .] they were already exposed to music and naturally inclined to join the rock club. But for me, it’s not like that. I simply chose a high school club, and it was just that I wanted to do this right and do it well [. . .] So my study habits from a young age, or the way I used to do things, kind of influence my bass playing [. . .] I approach it like studying, striving for a certain score or ranking, that kind of feeling.

In Lin’s reflection, Sean and Huang stood out as the very few students who had already cultivated a unique musical taste before high school, immersed in indie music culture. Compared to most club members, they may have developed a less competitive musical disposition, which might cause tension with their high school rock club’s shared disposition. For example, starting from an early age, Sean gradually became an indie music fan influenced by his older brother, learning to play drums in junior high. His well-developed and distinctive musical disposition often caused unease in the high school rock club: he often challenged the way most club members engaged in rock activities. In contrast, most club members proudly emphasise that after just one year of training in their club, beginners can easily ‘technically outperform’ those who started learning rock instruments before senior high school. The rationale behind such a ‘crash course’ mentality is similar to that of pursuing exam success in standardised testing: both correspond to dispositions marked by accelerated learning through repetitive practice and rote-learning.

After starting their undergraduate studies, many former high school rock club members transition into the Taiwanese indie music scene, where college students dominate due to their increased leisure time autonomy. The student musicians in this study followed a similar path. However, their learning dispositions and instrumental proficiency acquired in high school became a hindrance to their musicality after they became college students. Former club leader Jian, now a bass player in a locally famous indie band, contends that the proficient technique he learned in high school has become a rigid musical language that constrains his songwriting, as he experienced great difficulty breaking away from the conventional musical patterns associated with the learning disposition he’d already developed. Lee, a former member who played drums for several indie bands, noted in an interview that while most of his clubmates struggled to ‘fit into’ the indie scene, a select few with more diverse musical tastes, like the previously mentioned ex-member Sean, adapt more seamlessly. The tensions that these students experience in the indie music field are very similar to the tensions that most Taiwanese students, accustomed to standardised testing’s learning patterns, usually face in the educational context, where non-standardised evaluation is more preferred – such as college education which places more emphasis on an open-ended and essay-based form of knowledge acquisition, or a different educational context, as will be addressed in the next case. In confronting both dilemmas, students often need to go through a certain period to adapt to the new context in which their original dispositions do not fit, and to different learning patterns.

Taiwanese academically elite students in French preparatory class

In our second case, we explore the experiences of Taiwanese academically elite students who transposed their learning dispositions into a different educational field: French preparatory classes of the grandes écoles (Bourdieu, 1996; Darmon, 2013). These students primarily come from gifted programmes focused on mathematical and scientific competitions, endowing them with a deeper understanding of advanced maths and physics. Despite their appreciation for demonstration and scientific competitions, they also underwent training that entailed mastering mathematics through repetitive standardised question exercises, aside from their competition training. This is because the primary objective for academically elite students in Taiwan, including those deeply involved in competitions, was to secure admission to prestigious local universities in fields such as medicine, dentistry and electronic engineering. The university admission exam, centred around standardised tests, served as a crucial trial for attaining these elite positions.

As already mentioned, where standardised tests prevail, students must develop corresponding dispositions to adjust to them. Standardised test questions may allow examiners to evaluate students’ performance in an efficient manner, but at the price of not observing how students arrive at their answers. Calculation in maths, in turn, allows examiners to provide uniform answers when they design the multiple-choice questions (questions with several optional answers). When these two elements combine with each other, students face numerous multiple-choice questions in a single test. Speed is essential, and one must, through practice, learn how to calculate quickly and proficiently. On the other hand, the intensive training they receive for competitions, such as the Science Olympiads, may seem to centre on creative problem-solving. However, teachers associated with national teams continue to prepare students by having them solve numerous past examination questions. This approach, while aiming to maximise their chances of winning prizes in these competitions, closely aligns with the repetitive nature of standardised testing. Under these circumstances, students continue to undergo similar training methods as those designed for standardised testing, endowing them with a rich technical subspecies of cultural capital as illustrated in the previous case, despite their seeming disdain for the conventional ‘multiple-choice questions’ regimen. Such an ambivalence between demonstration and calculation, non-standardised and standardised testing, becomes part of their ‘schemes of perception, appreciation, and action’ (Bourdieu, 1996; Darmon, 2013).

In the early stages of their preparatory studies, these students often hold an initial sense of affinity with the French preparatory class. They perceive the mathematics taught there as more ‘rigorous’, attributing this perception to the absence of standardised testing and the emphasis placed on demonstration. Lin emphasises that the French philosophy course pushes them to write essays with open-ended answers. Similarly, in maths courses, students are asked to explain why and how they solve a question when demonstrating a theorem. Lin compares maths in Taiwan and in France:

Likewise, maths in Taiwan has choice questions, one chooses among answer[s] a, b, c and d. Here [in France], a question may be divided into 16 smaller sections and one solves it step by step. Demonstration after demonstration, that is the real maths – it seems to me that what I have learnt in Taiwan is not maths, but arithmetic, it is nothing more than the techniques of calculation!

For Lin, demonstration produces a higher level of maths, while arithmetic or calculation may lead students astray. However, how they were trained in Taiwan matters no less than the form of question itself. Lu considers mathematical training in Taiwan to be characterised by repetitive practices, even when preparing for competitions which are expected to be more open-ended and creative than standardised tests:

In Taiwan, we practise lots of test questions. In French preparatory class, the materials are much more difficult, so we may learn something like logical derivation. I think I can speak about my internship in French high schools. Concerning their maths course, even there we can observe great differences. Less questions are taught in class; teachers often ask pupils to solve equations, so the rhythm is much slower than in Taiwan. In Taiwan, teachers solve equations on their lectern, but seldom explain how to solve it, and in tests we’re always facing loads of questions. There are not so many questions in tests [in French high school], some are fill-in-the-blank questions, but you should always write down your reasoning process.

Being a student of an école normale supérieure, Lu has worked as a student teacher in a French secondary school, providing her with deeper first-hand experiences in this context. The ‘choice question’ represents the epitome of standardised questions, and our interviewees hold choice questions in disdain, as they are well-versed in ‘rigorous demonstration’, rather than merely guessing or calculating to arrive at the correct answer.

Despite this apparent affinity, these students came to realise that the demonstration in preparatory class still differs from what they have learnt in Taiwan: their acquired disposition may be too pragmatic. The form of the question may be familiar, but they are not accustomed to the form of the answer. Sébastien emphasises that the explanation of demonstration is an essential element: one should write down the whole process and explain in detail how you arrived at the answer, not just display the final equation. If one does not answer this way, points are taken off, to the extent that some students may be asked to repeat the second year. Louis admits:

I’ve studied there for three years. When I enrolled in the concours [the grande école entrance exam] in my second year there, my teacher told me that I could not succeed because he felt that I didn’t grasp the rule of testing. At that time, I was still stuck in the mode of competition in Taiwan. I prepared for it for too long, as that is my way of studying. My scores kept being taken off during that time; my teacher said ‘You skipped here or there’, so I was neither sufficiently adapted to the testing rules there, nor [did I] follow my teacher’s advice.

The students’ inclination to respond accurately without explicitly articulating their reasoning can be attributed to the influence of standardised testing evaluations. Despite confronting non-standardised demonstration questions, their training, mirroring that of standardised testing, inhibits their ability to deviate from established, pragmatic dispositions, particularly in settings where students prioritise the answer over the process itself.

Hence, our interviewees hold that the act of ‘demonstration’ could be distinguished into two categories: the deductive proof in the French preparatory class, and the intuitive or pragmatic proof of competitions in Taiwan. Deductive proof involves breaking down complex questions into demonstrable stages that reveal students’ reasoning. In contrast, intuitive or pragmatic demonstration bears similarity to standardised testing, where the focus is on obtaining the correct answer, not the path taken to reach it (for a similar distinction, see Darmon, 2013). In this type of mathematical or scientific competition in Taiwan, success relies on extensive practice with past exams to adapt to a broad range of diverse questions, resembling preparation for standardised testing. Jim clarifies the method of demonstration by comparing its two forms:

It [the question to be demonstrated in preparatory class] will guide you to use the correct means to solve the question through a group of small questions. As for competitions [back in Taiwan], when I was working on mathematics competitions, that’s not the case [. . .] often a very difficult question just came out of the blue, and you should look for the solution yourself.

These two demonstrations differ because the question of competition does not ‘guide’ students; however, it ‘just came out of the blue’, constituting another type of mathematical expertise that is more intuitive. Indeed, competitions promote intuitive resolution, as well as certain techniques that serve it. Noah says:

[In preparatory class,] if you want to apply a theorem, it’s necessary to understand why you can apply it. But in Taiwan, I don’t know why, everyone applies it directly, without saying why. You can do the infinitesimal calculation directly, write the process directly even if you don’t know why we can solve each step like this [. . .] Competition is about solving questions. There are techniques for solving questions; they are pretty specific.

Competition-induced ‘overly intuitive’ demonstration is marked by the arbitrary application of exceptional techniques and ‘non-linear’ reasoning. It exhibits a ‘pragmatic’ inclination: the focus is on finding a solution for a desirable outcome, regardless of the approach. These competitions permit the application of theorems without justification, in contrast to deductive demonstration (in preparatory class), which requires students to provide reasoned explanations. Participation in competitions through Taiwan’s gifted education programmes exposes students to an ostensibly different approach from standardised testing, fostering a specific disposition toward mathematics. This pragmatic disposition is cultivated through repetitive exercises suitable for standardised testing, despite differences in question format. However, it conflicts to some extent with the more deductive and academically oriented mathematics training in preparatory class. As a result, some students find themselves caught between these two methods.

Typically, interviewees with lower performance levels are less aware of the tension between these dispositions, whereas high-performing individuals tend to be more attuned to these subtleties. This heightened awareness facilitates a smoother adaptation to another educational field. For Jeanne, an outstanding student in terms of maths competition, these two dispositions are obviously contradictory:

Jeanne: I think maths [. . .] in France, is obviously more abstract; they focus on how you define questions [. . .] it takes most of the time to define a question. But the mathematics questions of the competitions in Taiwan lead us to apply ‘skilfully’ the theorems or formulas that you learned. So their reasoning is different [. . .] It seems to me that the competences formed by the competition don’t work in mathematics [in preparatory class], or, they are kind of ‘counter-effects’.

What do you mean?

Jeanne: In France, one is careful of the definition, then step by step, one writes according to the definition. But competitions favour tricks: you apply what you know, and you arrive at the solution to any question.

Deeper knowledge and practical mastery of pragmatic mathematical excellence likely contribute to Jeanne’s recognition of the tension between these two dispositions: this self-awareness may be attributed to the effect of this unstable situation (Lizardo, 2017). In contrast, individuals like Poe, who lacked prior formal participation in high-level competitions, paradoxically perceive similarities between the mathematics in competitions and that in the preparatory class. He believed both ‘are stuff that test our intelligence’, considering his competition preparation as valuable for these preparatory class studies. However, he ended up dedicating an extra year to succeed in the entrance exam for the most prestigious engineering grande école. Still others, like Louis cited above, were so rooted in the pragmatic logic of competition that the previously formed dispositions constitute a burden for his career.

In light of the predominant embodied cultural capital among academically elite students in East Asian education, our second case study examines those who transition to an analogous context: the French preparatory class. This case illuminates the distinct dispositions nurtured by gifted education programmes, underscoring the variety of dispositions within the Taiwanese educational system where standardised tests hold sway. The students’ mathematical dispositions appear unique, as they take pride in their mathematical excellence, demonstrated through proofs, despite still undergoing training characterised by repetitive practices aligned with standardised tests. Although their pragmatic demonstration may seem different from routine standardised testing or multiple-choice questions, it still focuses on producing correct answers more than on the process of arriving at them, and the training methods remain largely consistent. Therefore, when they move to another educational system where standardised testing plays a lesser role, students find themselves still ensnared by standardised testing techniques, so they must adapt to the new demands by confronting their own pragmatic dispositions. Generally, those who perceived these differences began early on to change their learning and demonstrating practices and thus could transition more seamlessly to another educational field. Consequently, similar to the transposition of dispositions across domains of practice in the first case, our second case illustrates that within the same domain of practice, standardised testing exerts lasting effects even on those who attempt to break free from its influence.

Conclusion

Standardised testing is a default value for our interviewees, and its corresponding disposition is an important embodied cultural capital in East Asian societies. Existing studies on cultural capital explore less the prevailing students’ dispositions in these societies where standardised testing prevails. Our study aims to bridge this gap by focusing on disposition transposition through which these semi-conscious, embodied forms of cultural capital manifest. To symmetrically explore the transposition between domains and across different educational contexts within the same domain, we analysed how students navigate two unstable situations. In the first case, we explored students adapting their pragmatic disposition to the realm of rock music activities. In the second case, we examined how academically elite Taiwanese students adjust to a different educational system characterised by non-standardised exams: the French preparatory class.

This pragmatic disposition encompasses a pursuit of efficient learning methods, a commitment to attainable skills, and extensive repetitive practice to excel in competitions. It is deeply ingrained in the highly competitive standardised testing system, where students often prioritise scoring over substantive knowledge. Despite their efforts to distance themselves from the stereotyped image linked to standardised testing, these elite students’ enduring dispositions persist in their practices. Applying the standardised testing competition scheme to other domains, some students immerse themselves in technically intensive musical genres, ranking their musical abilities. Others persist in rigorous mathematical competition preparation through repetitive drills. Consequently, the former wrestle with stifled or limited musical creativity, while the latter strive to bridge the gap between pragmatic and deductive demonstrations. The ‘hysteresis effect’ of habitus is manifested through disposition transfer between domains or across contexts within the same domain. It is noteworthy that the degree of hysteresis experienced by each student may vary due to their possession of different combinations of capitals, or different past experiences. Some students adapt to new situations more readily, while for others, their enduring disposition persists. Regardless of individual variations, attempts at transposition reveal a specific embodied cultural capital shaped by standardised testing.

This analysis may make several contributions to the existing literature. First, our study sheds light on specific forms of embodied cultural capital whose significance continues to grow. Relevant studies in East Asia suggest that the cultural capital in these educational contexts may be less aesthetically oriented, particularly during secondary education. While East Asian parents cultivate their children’s aesthetic cultural capital, this emphasis often diminishes as their children transition to secondary education, shifting toward standardised testing for advancement. By examining students’ learning practices through disposition transposition, we aim to clarify the embodied cultural capital that holds greater legitimacy within Taiwan’s standardised testing system, offering insights for the contexts with parallel educational systems. As evidenced in our cases, this disposition can act as a bridge between students’ academic achievements and their cultural practices, while revealing emerging technical subspecies of cultural capital. Since the early 1970s, Bourdieu, Boltanski and Saint Martin (1973) observed the growing importance of scientific/technological subspecies of cultural capital in France. Lahire (1995) also noted its sustained presence in France dating back to the 1970s. In a more recent study, Friedman and Laurison (2019) extended Bourdieu’s underdeveloped concept of ‘technical capital’ to characterise this non-aesthetic form of cultural capital in British professional middle-class jobs, acquired through linear, formalised and rationalised procedures. Our exploration of the pragmatic learning disposition favoured by standardised testing resonates with these observations. In our field studies, this learning disposition is even more pronounced among academically elite students in scientific programmes, where mathematics and natural sciences carry more weight in the educational system. This pragmatic disposition may enhance their efficiency in acquiring these subspecies of cultural capital and can be transferred across domains or contexts. Due to space limitations, we cannot scrutinise this issue here. However, we echo Friedman and Laurison’s call for more research on these cultural capital subspecies and their connection to emerging professions like the IT sector and engineering (2019, p. 340). Specifically, we propose examining the complex interplay between standardised testing (or various evaluation mechanisms), technical capital, career trajectories, and the growth of relevant industries and institutions. Such an investigation could provide a more comprehensive analysis of social stratification, especially in the current educational landscape, where standardised testing and STEM education have gained increasing prominence.

Second, the transposition of dispositions across contexts can serve as a valuable relational methodological tool. Given that habitus as a system of ‘durable, transferable’ dispositions, transposition and the correlative hysteresis effect are significant aspects of human life. By investigating the transposition of dispositions within ‘unstable situations’ (Lizardo, 2017), where dispositions shaped by standardised testing encounter tension, we can relationally explore the interplay between disposition and objective conditions. While standardised education stands as one of the most influential forms of evaluation in contemporary educational systems, other evaluation forms and their corresponding dispositions consistently accompany them. These evaluations contribute to an individual’s complex heritage of dispositions (Lahire, 2003) and introduce a variety of unstable situations. Researchers can investigate how the development of dispositions relates to various forms of evaluation across different educational systems, or they can explore the interactions across different domains of practice. As demonstrated in our case studies, this approach helps clarify why the learning dispositions shaped by standardised testing can be incongruent with aesthetically oriented cultural capital, thus shedding light on the diverse relationships among students’ subspecies of embodied cultural capital.