Exploring the Role of Family, Social Class, and Cultural Capital in the Formation of Academic Hope: A Grounded Theory Study

Amirali Babaei; Anahita  Faraji; Saber  Sharifi; Elham  Kaviani

doi:10.61838/rgt2yz98

Authors

Amirali Babaei Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Educational Governance and Human Capital, Ker.C., Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8780-7493
Anahita Faraji Department of Educational Governance and Human Capital, Ker.C., Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran Author https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7237-4700
Saber Sharifi Department of Educational Governance and Human Capital, Ker.C., Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran Author https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0825-1301
Elham Kaviani Department of Educational Governance and Human Capital , Ker.C., Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran Author https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7088-7127

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61838/rgt2yz98

Keywords:

Academic hope, family, social class, cultural capital, agency thinking, pathways thinking, grounded theory

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to develop a grounded theoretical model explaining how family characteristics, social-class position, cultural capital, and educational structures contribute to the formation, erosion, and revitalization of students’ academic hope.

Methods and Materials: This qualitative study employed the systematic grounded theory approach of Strauss and Corbin. Participants were 15 experts in educational management, educational sciences, curriculum planning, and psychology who were selected through purposive and snowball sampling until theoretical saturation was achieved. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews lasting 60–120 minutes. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding. The emerging categories were organized according to the six components of the paradigmatic model, namely causal conditions, the core phenomenon, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, strategies, and consequences. MAXQDA 2020 was used to manage the data and construct conceptual networks.

Findings: Academic hope emerged as a relational cognitive–motivational construct shaped by the interaction between pathways thinking and agency thinking within the family and educational contexts. Family cultural capital and economic support were identified as the principal causal conditions, while spatial inequality and macroeconomic instability constituted the main contextual conditions. Emotional insecurity, imposed perfectionism, and the intergenerational transmission of hopelessness functioned as intervening mechanisms that depleted cognitive resources and weakened intrinsic motivation. Family-centered interventions, reconstruction of emotional security, and school-based compensatory pathways were identified as the principal strategies. Their anticipated consequences included revitalized agency, stronger intrinsic motivation, lower dropout intentions, improved academic functioning, and preservation of human capital.

Conclusion: Academic hope is not exclusively an individual psychological attribute but a dynamic outcome of interactions among individual agency, family resources, social-class position, emotional security, and the political economy of education; therefore, reducing educational failure requires coordinated family, school, and structural interventions.

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