Construction of Digital Transformation Mechanism for Urban Aesthetic Education Heritage from the Perspective of Bourdieu's Cultural Capital

Abstract

Urban aesthetic education heritage, which carries historical memory and combines artistic value with educational functions, has become a key cultural resource in the current wave of national digitalization and aesthetic education reform. Its digital transformation is widely regarded as an essential route toward dynamic preservation and value appreciation. Drawing on Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory, this study classifies urban aesthetic education heritage into three capital forms-materialized, internalized, and institutionalized-and uses Shenyang as an empirical case. The analysis identifies several barriers in current practice, including weak symbolic translation, limited educational impact, and the absence of collaborative governance. On this basis, the paper proposes a threefold digital transformation mechanism that integrates material translation, internalized cultivation, and institutional guarantee, together with four practical paths: resource archiving, scenario-based dissemination, collaborative governance, and value appreciation. The findings suggest that digital technology can shift urban aesthetic education heritage from static materialized capital to a dynamic cycle of cultural capital, offering a transferable reference for heritage conservation and value realization in comparable industrial cities.