ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Cultural Heritage Education and Civic Engagement: A Value-Socialization Model among Chinese University Students
Hangzhou Polytechnic University, Hangzhou, China
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Abstract
Cultural heritage education (CHE) has been increasingly promoted in higher education as a means of fostering students' civic engagement, yet the psychological mechanisms through which such educational experiences translate into civic outcomes remain insufficiently specified. Drawing on value socialization perspectives, the present study proposes and tests a mechanism-oriented model in which CHE influences civic engagement through two complementary internalization pathways: cultural identity, conceptualized as a cognitive process of self-definition, and cultural pride, conceptualized as an affective evaluative orientation toward cultural heritage. Using survey data from 744 Chinese undergraduate students, structural equation modeling was employed to compare a fully mediated model with a partial-mediation specification that allowed for residual direct effects of CHE on civic engagement. Results indicated that CHE was positively associated with both cultural identity and cultural pride, which independently predicted civic engagement, and bootstrap analyses confirmed significant indirect effects through both pathways, while a residual direct association between CHE and civic engagement remained. These findings advance existing research by operationalizing value socialization as a dual-process mechanism involving parallel cognitive and affective pathways, clarifying how heritage education may foster civic engagement through both meaning internalization and positive emotional evaluation. The study contributes to theoretical refinement of value socialization models and offers practical implications for the design of cultural heritage education in higher education, particularly in the Chinese context.
Summary
Keywords
Civic engagement, Cultural Heritage Education, Cultural identity, culturalpride, Educational socialization, higher education, Structural Equation Modeling, Student development
Received
01 January 2026
Accepted
06 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Yu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Xu Yu
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