Category: Research Highlights

Research Highlighted

Siqi Zhang & Cora Lingling Xu (2020). ‘The Making of Transnational Distinction: an Embodied Cultural Capital Perspective on Chinese Women Students’ Mobility’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, p.1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2020.1804836

Watch a lecture video of this paper.

About the article

The rapid rise of international education worldwide and China’s dramatic economic development have led to a boost in Chinese students’ pursuit of transnational higher education in the UK. Statistics from the Centre for China and Globalization (CCG 2015) reports that more than 60% of the international Chinese students in Britain were female Chinese students in 2015. With the implementation of one-child policy, women’s improved position in Chinese society and family is the driving force for urban Chinese middle-class young women’s drastically rising transnational education mobility (Kajanus 2015a). Many studies focus on the visible cultural capital and students’ distinction such as the degrees which Chinese international students obtained and its conversion to job competitiveness, but less visible embodied cultural capital has been somewhat neglected in the literature of international students’ distinction. Distinction can also be problematic as mobility sometimes disrupts the advantages that are usually assumed to be linked with cross-border student mobility (Xu 2015; Xu 2017; Xu 2018a; Xu 2018b). Transnational distinction is highly relevant in an age when western degree inflation intersects with harsh gender expectations for Chinese women student migrants, a significant group of players in the scene of UK higher education. As there are rising numbers of women Chinese students participating in the flow of transnational educational mobility, it appears crucial to investigate how Chinese women students studying in the UK negotiate their positioning, especially in relation to how they construct their own distinction to justify their transnational education moves. This article aims to address these research questions: How does transnational student mobility from China to the UK still bestow these women students’ ‘distinction’ against the backdrop of ‘Western degree inflation’ in China’s labour market? More explicitly, when Chinese women students claim distinction from gaining a UK degree, what is the significance of such transnational student flows that result from such a search for distinction?

This research applied a mixed qualitative methodology including participant observation and semi-structured interviews in a British university. Participant observations were conducted in diverse students’ social activities. Meanwhile, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 participants during the fieldwork. We find that upon entering a new transnational HE field, most participants expressed a strong disappointment and even depression when their middle-class social status was overridden by their status as ‘racialised migrants’ (Cui 2015). Most participants felt that their middle-class social status, social network and family resources in China were cut off due to transnational mobility. The transnational education mobility seems to diminish the likelihood of converting their possessed capitals into a desired distinctive status in this new transnational HE field (Xu 2017). However, it was shared by most participants that distinction can be achieved through accumulating embodied cultural capital, namely, the absorption of new gendered practice. Their distinction is reflected from their active comparison with their Chinese peers and their peers studying in the US on the basis of the new embodied acquisition of global cultural taste obtained from the cultural opportunities/consumption that transnational mobility offered. Some participants perceived that performing locally accepted middle-class British made them feel more recognised in this transnational HE field. Meanwhile, most of the participants embodied increasing global cultural tastes through frequenting exhibitions, museums and galleries in their spare time. However, participants’ interpretation of ‘British local middle class’ or ‘embodied higher taste’ was restricted to their perception because of the mixture of their middle-class taste and their taste for popular mass culture. We also find that Chinese women students’ choices of returning to their home country after graduation were also strongly affected by the gender norms in home country, participants feel that their absorption of new gendered disposition of mind was restricted when taking her final destination into consideration.

We argue that these students’ transnational distinction can be contingent upon the fields where they perceived they were/would be in, the mixture of what embodied cultural capital they have actually obtained and which peer groups they compared themselves with. In these students’ attempts to mark their transnational distinction, they displayed notably uninformed understanding of the complex racial/ethnic and class fabrics of the British society. Such a partial frame of understanding in relation to the host society had induced a mixture of results, including their heightened sense of marginalisation and their romanticised ascription of cultural superiority over peers studying in other popular destinations. But it still took time for students to ascertain what newly acquired cultural capital and disposition of mind to maintain when the field is about to change. Therefore, we argue that the distinction achieved during transnational student mobility is field-specific and educational mobility can both relegate their social status as well as elevate their middle-class distinction under certain circumstances. There still exist complexity to their realisation of distinction.

Authors’ Bio

Siqi Zhang (PhD) is a teaching fellow in Moray House School of Education and Sport at the University of Edinburgh. Her PhD research explores the ways in which gender and cultural capital are closely linked with international students’ transnational educational choices and their transnational study experiences during their stay in a Scottish university. Her research interests include sociology of education, gender, cultural capital, transnational educational mobility, social inequality in education and student experience in international higher education. She can be contacted via siqi.zhang@ed.ac.uk; Twitter: @_Siqi_Zhang.

Dr. Cora Lingling Xu

Dr Cora Lingling Xu (PhD Cambridge, FHEA) is Assistant Professor at Durham University, UK. Her research interests include educational mobilities, identities and social theories. She has researched cross-border student and academic migration, ethnic minority and rurality topics within contemporary Chinese societies. She is an editorial board member of the British Journal of Sociology of Education, Cambridge Journal of Education and International Studies in Sociology of Education. She is founder and director of Network for Research into Chinese Education Mobilities. She has more than a dozen publications in journals such as The Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology of Education, International Studies in Sociology of Education, Time and Society,  and European Educational Research Journal. You can access her publications here. She can be contacted via Email: lingling.xu@durham.ac.uk; Twitter: CoraLinglingXu.

Research Highlighted

Mulvey, B., & Lo, W. Y. W. (2020). Learning to ‘tell China’s story well’: the constructions of international students in Chinese higher education policy. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1-13. doi:10.1080/14767724.2020.1835465

Our goal in this study was to understand how international students are constructed in Chinese policy texts, using a policy-as-discourse approach. We draw out the nuances and possible internal contradictions of policy texts and the various ways students’ roles are represented within them, by taking a discursive approach which is rarely used in studies on international student mobility policy, with a few exceptions (see Riaño, Mol, and Raghuram 2018b). A critical discussion of the ethical dimensions of Chinese higher education internationalisation is not present in the existing literature (e.g. Pan 2013; Zhu and Zhang, 2017; Ma and Zhou 2018; Liu and Wang 2020), despite the rapid rise of China as a destination for international students. As such, we outline the discursive constructions of the roles of international students in national policy texts and discuss these constructions in relation to a body of critical approaches to internationalisation that has developed with reference to Western internationalisation (e.g. George Mwangi et al. 2018).

In terms of the approach taken to analysing the data, we draw on the important work of Lomer (2017a) who applies a policy-as-discourse analysis to national policies in the UK. This approach can be described as broadly Foucauldian, in that discourses are seen as socially produced forms of knowledge which limit and shape what it is possible to think or express about social practices (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016).

The major themes we found in our analysis are as follows: (i) students as para-diplomats, (ii) students as a point of mutual exchange, (iii) students as future elites, (iv) students as of insufficient quality, (v) students as a potential public security threat. The dominant representation of students uncovered through the thematic analysis conceives of students as tools for the realisation of China’s foreign policy goals. This construction of students’ roles is common in other contexts such as the UK, the USA, and Canada (e.g. Wilson 2014; Trilokekar 2015; Lomer 2017a). For example, Wilson highlights how scholarship programmes in the West, such as the Fulbright and Colombo programmes (Sidhu 2006; Tran and Vu 2018) often portray international students as playing the role of a ‘para-diplomat’. However, in these contexts, the para-diplomat construction appears to have become less dominant over time, with neoliberal constructions of students becoming more common as a result of the ‘aid to trade’ (Stein and de Andreotti 2016) shift in higher education. This is in contrast to Chinese policy texts, where the construction of students as para-diplomats is primary and the recruitment of students is not undergirded by economic considerations.

The narrative of students as para-diplomats appears to change subtly over time, as international student recruitment is referenced in relation to China’s grand strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (e.g. MOE, 2017c; MOFCOM, 2018). This ‘outward’ shift is reflected in policy documents released since the inception of the BRI which increasingly employ a discourse of ‘mutual understanding’ between China and BRI countries through ISM (MOE 2019a). Indeed, a stated goal of the BRI is to ‘strengthen exchanges and mutual learning between different civilizations’ (BRI 2020). Policy texts also appear to suggest that to achieve the desired outcome of improved international relations from the recruitment of students, said students recruited by Chinese universities should not be ordinary members of their home societies. For example, the 13th five-year plan for the development of national education calls for the ‘strengthening the cultivation of elites’ through international education (MOE 2017d), and a press release on the Belt and Road Initiative includes a quote from Xu Tao, Director of the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange in the MOE, who emphasises that a goal of China’s international student recruitment is to ‘cultivate high-level talented individuals’ and to ‘train young elites and future leaders in developing countries’ (MOE 2017a).

The analysis also uncovered a theme which is present in documents from 2018 onwards: the suggestion that the ‘quality’ of international students should be improved, implying, contradictorily, that students are not future elites who are highly likely to go onto positions of influence. For example, it is suggested that ‘University admissions departments … should guarantee and continuously improve the quality of international students’ (MOE 2018b). This calls into question the idea that China is recruiting international students who will go on to become societal elites able to act as ‘interpreters’ of China in their home country (Scott-Smith 2008). Recent research, which reports that universities in China needed to lower entrance requirements in order to recruit more international students, echoes this finding (Song 2018; Liu and Wang 2020).

The final theme highlighted in this article is one in which international students are presented as requiring guidance in order to understand and obey Chinese laws. This theme echoes Ho’s (2017, 26) finding that some international students perceived that administrators were concerned with the ‘moral degradation’ of domestic students through contact with international students. This theme also emerged after 2018, possibly in response to the perceived problem of international students ‘misbehaviour’, several instances of which were reported in Chinese state-controlled media (Yan 2019). This led to an unnamed MOE official stating that universities ‘should seriously punish foreign students if they violate those rules’ in the state media outlet People’s Daily (Yan 2019). It is likely that the emerging policy construction of students as potential security threats is related to these developments. In other words, this policy is framed as a solution to the ‘problem’ of unruly international students constructed through policy discourse.

In the conclusion of this article, we seek to reflect on these findings in a critical light. We suggest that interaction between sending and host countries within the Global South clearly offers opportunities for re-thinking the fundamentally exploitative and imbalanced relationships which inform discourses contained within ISM policy in the Global North. A discourse of mutual exchange has emerged in Chinese policy texts, which seems to be fundamentally opposed to the constructions of students as valuable to the extent that they are economically or politically useful, which appear to reproduce those found in the Global North. The narrative associated with the BRI seems to hint at a move towards the kind of internationalisation conceived of in ‘soft’ critiques of internationalisation. For example, literature on global public goods often calls for a conceptualisation of internationalisation based around notions of ‘win-win’ (Marginson 2007, 331) and ‘shared prosperity’ (Stein 2017, 13) echoing the narrative of ‘mutual exchange’ in BRI related ISM policy discourse. However, policy discourses are often contradictory (e.g. O’Connor 2018), and in this case, Chinese ISM policy discourse also presents international education as a resource for securing national (geo)political advantage, and international students variously as politically docile tools for securing this national advantage and as future elites, and at same time as academically and morally deficient, and as a public security risk, effectively undermining the narrative of mutual civilisational exchange.

Ben Mulvey is a PhD candidate at the Education University of Hong Kong. Ben’s research focuses on educational migration between Africa and China, and what this student flow reveals about China’s attempts to (re)shape the global “field” of higher education. He can be contacted via the following email address: bmulvey@s.eduhk.hk

Listen to an interview with Ben Mulvey; Read the summary of Ben’s interview

Read Ben’s other entries here, here and here.

William Lo is an Associate Professor and the Associate Head of the Department of International Education at the Education University of Hong Kong. His research areas include higher education policy and comparative and international higher education, with a focus on East Asia. He has published more than 50 articles, chapters, books, and special journal issues. He serves as an Associate Editor for Asian Pacific Journal of Education and Higher Education Evaluation and Development. He holds a PhD in social policy from the University of Bristol.

Research Highlighted

Chen, S. (2020). Competing for privilege –aspirational youth at a Chinese high school entrepreneurship competition. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 1-16. doi:10.1080/01425692.2020.1836475

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Abstract

The recent expansion and diversification of the overseas education market in China have given birth to the so-called “Background Promotion Projects” that help elite university aspirants elevate their application backgrounds. Based on ethnographic findings of a Chinese high school entrepreneurship competition, one of such programs, this study analyzes how prospective applicants to Western elite universities learned “the art of aspiration” by constructing and performing entrepreneurial subjectivities. Building a link between Arjun Appadurai’s concept of “the capacity to aspire” and Elizabeth Currid-Halkett’s theory of “the aspirational class,” this study reveals how the deepening social stratification in China and the rise of a global meritocracy reinforce each other. Demonstrating how privilege is consolidated and justified through the (re)production of aspirations, this study further contributes to the theorization of class reproduction and education at a time of post-industrial change and international mobility.

Introduction

Situating a high school entrepreneurship competition in the context of Chinese globalization and industrial upgrade, this ethnographic study offers a glimpse into the overseas education service where different capitals – the material, social and cultural – are mobilized for the (re)production of aspirational subjectivities through the performances of entrepreneurship. Examining the preparatory stage of student migration, this study reveals how deepening social stratification in China and the rise of a global meritocracy reinforce each other in the transnationalized production of inequality.

Theoretical framework

This study builds a link between Elizabeth Currid-Halkett (2017) theory of “the aspirational class” and Arjun Appadurai’s (2013) concept of “the capacity to aspire”. Termed by Currid-Halkett (2017) as the “aspirational class”, the new elite class elevated with the ascendance of a new post-industrial economy. One of the most telling consumption habits that set them apart from other social groups is their (increasingly) heavy investment in their children’s education (ibid). Currid-Halkett’s notion of the “aspirational class” also applies to the Chinese context where a shift from a labour-intensive industry to a knowledge-based economy is taking place. Similar to their American counterparts, the new elite in China have stepped up their investment in education with the goal of sending their children to elite universities in developed countries.

The selection criteria used at these elite universities are based on a meritocracy paradigm that values a proven track record of achievements that signal sophistication, talent and intellectual promise (Liu 2011). Such aspirations and experiences align with the shared values of the aspirational class, and familiarity with these cultural values and social practices is closely related to what Appadurai terms “the capacity to aspire”. According to Appadurai, aspirations as cultural capacities are “formed in interaction and in the thick of social life” (2013, 187) and are closely related to local ideas and beliefs (Appadurai 2013). Seen from this perspective, the high school entrepreneurship competition, in a Bourdieuian sense, is part of an overseas education pipeline that enhances the students’ capacity to aspire globally.

Methods

This competition is held once every semester break in Shenzhen. I conducted my ethnographic study on two occasions: 13–17 July 2017, and 22–25 February 2018. I compensated for the short duration of the field study by employing a mix of data collection methods, including interviews, focus groups and onsite and participant observations. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 out of 57 participants in total. Informants were recruited by way of snowball sampling, starting with those with whom I became acquainted during the competition and extending to their team members. I also conducted focus group studies with the organizers of the competition, as well as with the advisors, coaches, judges and parents of the competition participants.

Ethnographic findings

The competition not only discouraged the participants’ fixation on conspicuous consumption, but it also attempted to cultivate the contestants’ cultural omnivorousness. As a marked feature of the aspirational class, such an eclectic cultural preference is a new form of cultural capital that reflects education and comfort in diverse environments (Currid-Halkett 2017), which provides advantages in an open world (Hanquinet, Roose, and Savage 2014). Besides, participants’ display of their ease in and enjoyment of the gruelling competition was a manifestation of cultivated talent acquired through long, sophisticated training as well as a validation of their elite positions. Moreover, the competition was a social event where young aspirants met and networked with peers, educators, experienced entrepreneurs and potential investors. In this process, participants engage in a mode of interaction that reflects privileges and advantages in social life. Last but not least, the competition enabled applicants to build up a track record of extracurricular achievements conducive to their future study and work.

Conclusion

The preparatory services provided by overseas education agencies, as a form of concerted cultivation, not only prepare applicants to navigate the admission systems of elite schools, but also enhance their capacity to aspire by offering a continuing record of individuated and skill-based experiences. Acquiring the mindset and practical discipline of a “strategic cosmopolitan” (Mitchell 2003, 387), the participants equip themselves in ways that suit the imperatives of the global labour market. For this young aspirational class, with their prospective elite educational credentials, transnational mobility and understanding, knowledge of and social connections in the global labour market, “desire tends to inform possibility: what is imagined is simply made possible” (Sellar and Gale 2011). Their less-privileged peers, who are absent from these types of high school entrepreneurship opportunities, however, may as well be “out” of the global economic arena.

References

Appadurai, A. (2013). “The Future as Cultural Fact.” In Essays on the Global Condition. London: Verso.

Currid-Halkett, E. (2017). The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hanquinet, L., H. Roose, and M. Savage. (2014). “The Eyes of the Beholder: Aesthetic Preferences andthe Remaking of Cultural Capital.” Sociology 48 (1): 111–132.

Liu, A. (2011). “Unraveling the Myth of Meritocracy within the Context of US Higher Education.” Higher Education 62 (4): 383–397.

Mitchell, K. (2003). “Educating the National Citizen in Neoliberal Times: From the Multicultural Self to the Strategic Cosmopolitan.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 28 (4): 387–403.

Sellar, S., and T. Gale. (2011). “Mobility, Aspiration, Voice: A New Structure of Feeling for Student Equity in Higher Education.” Critical Studies in Education 52 (2): 115–134.

Author Biography

Dr. Siyu Chen works as an assistant professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen). She is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work spans the fields of creative industries, education, urban studies and media studies. Her research examines the mutually constitutive nature of social practices, modes of power, and the intersections of multiple axes of identity, including place, gender and class. She is the winner of the Theodore C. Bestor Prize for Best Graduate Paper on the Anthropology of East Asia 2015 and the Asian Anthropology Best Paper Award 2017. She can be contacted via siyu.chen06@gmail.com.

Watch a video on this paper.

Research Highlighted

Heng, T. T. (2020). The Role of Theory in Qualitative Research: Insights from Studies on Chinese International Students in Higher Education. Journal of International Students. doi:https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v10i4.1571

Abstract

Given the historic high in international student numbers in higher education institutions worldwide, research on international students has likewise kept up with the growth. However, scholars observe that research in both higher education and international students lacks theoretical engagement and exhibits narrow epistemological framing. Drawing on Tight’s (2004) and Abdullah et. al’s (2014) approach, this article examined 43 qualitative research articles about Chinese international students to investigate the role of theory in influencing research designs, aims, and findings. Using research on Chinese international students as an analytic example, this study found that twenty-eight percent of the articles lacked theoretical engagement, and that acculturation and sociocultural theories were most popular. Further, more than half of the articles focused on Chinese international students’ challenges, in contrast to their changes or agentic potential. These findings are discussed in light of the implicit assumptions scholars make, with the conclusion that there is an urgent need for scholars to grow, diversify, and create theories relating to research on international students.

Background

Theory in research is defined as “a set of concepts and the proposed relationships among these, a structure that is intended to represent or model something about the world” (Maxwell, 2005, p. 42). Typically, research studies are guided by a theoretical or conceptual framing that draws on relevant theories and ideas—with their attendant assumptions—to inform research design, focus, method(s), and, eventually, data analysis. Other than framing research, theories can also be generated, for instance, through the grounded theory technique (Strauss & Corbin, 1994). Theoretical or conceptual frameworks are closely bound to the researcher’s paradigm, which, in turn, is shaped by the researcher’s personality, experiences, culture, and external environment. Qualitative educational research, in particular, thus is assumed to be value-laden (Lather, 1992; Pillow, 2003).

Theoretical engagement in qualitative research is essential. Without it, studies have limited reach and a field’s maturation can be inhibited (Abdullah et al., 2014; Kuhn, 1970; Rocco & Plakhotnik, 2009). Yet, Tight (2004) found that more than half of higher education research is atheoretical. Likewise, Abdullah et al. (2014) found 66% of articles on international students reflected low theoretical engagement and attributed this to the peripheral and economic lens through which international students are frequently viewed. As both studies offered macro perspectives around the issue of theory, this article drew on the method of both studies to offer a more intimate analysis of the theory-research nexus in the literature on Chinese international students. Chinese international students are used as an analytic case as they are the largest source of international students worldwide.

Method

Taking reference from Tight’s (2004) and Abdullah et al.’s (2014) research approach, a literature review was conducted on Chinese international students in 16 higher education journals. Included in the review was qualitative research articles between 2005 and 2017 that involved more than 50% Chinese international students as participants, and that focused on their experiences. Forty three articles were analysed for general publication trends, method/ologies, degree of theoretical explicitness (implicit, some, explicit), research focus, and theoretical perspectives.

Findings

General publication, method, participant, and location trends

There was a growing number of research on Chinese international students with 67% of the articles published after 2010. Interview was the most popular data collection method (84%), followed by descriptive survey (39%), and focus group (14%). More studies involved graduate students (47%) as opposed to undergraduate (19%). The largest proportion of studies was located in the United Kingdom (26%), followed by the United States (16%) and Australia (16%), New Zealand (12%), and Canada (9%).

Theoretical engagement

Thirty nine percent of the articles was theoretically explicit, 33% provided some evidence, and 28% was theoretically implicit. The most popular theories were sociocultural theories (39%) and acculturation theories (33%).

Theory-research focus nexus

Sixty percent of the articles focused primarily on challenges or issues faced by Chinese international students, with 38% of these articles offering an extended explanation for the challenges. Articles published after 2010 were more predisposed to acknowledging students’ agency (59%). Research using sociocultural theories tended to feature students’ agency more than those using acculturation theories.

Discussion

Only 39% of articles on Chinese international students explicitly used theories to frame the research or engaged deeply in theoretical discussions, highlighting, again, the marginalized role of theory in research. Low theoretical engagement in research could spell implications for research design. For instance, the aggregation of undergraduates with graduates reveals an assumption that the experiences of these two groups are similar (but are they?) and the under-utilization of methods like reflections and action research may suggest that scholars assume Chinese international students are to be researched on (but not with?). That most research tended to focus on students’ challenges (60%) as opposed to changes/agency (40%) invites us to ponder what assumptions we hold around Chinese international students and how research may unknowingly perpetuate implicit bias around them. Further, that research using acculturation theories appear less predisposed to examine student agency may reveal the underlying assumption of the theory that adaptation to a dominant culture is ideal. This holds consequences for how international students are portrayed—as meeting, or not, the standards of their new environment—possibly illuminating hidden assumptions we make of Chinese (and other) international students.

In sum, this article invites us to reflect on the assumptions scholars make in their choice of theory, the assumptions a theory is premised on, as well as the consequences of chosen theories on international student research. Such reflexivity can guard against narrow ways of researching and knowing, and are essential in elevating research and helping the international student field mature.

References

Abdullah, D., Abd Aziz, M. I., & Mohd Ibrahim, A. L. (2014). A “research” into international student-related research: (Re)visualising our stand? Higher Education, 67(3), 235–253. doi:10.1007/s10734-013-9647-3

Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.

Lather, P. (1992). Critical frames in educational research: Feminist and poststructural perspectives. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 87–99.

Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. SAGE.

Pillow, W. (2003). Confession, catharsis, or cure? Rethinking the uses of reflexivity as methodological power in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(2), 175–196.

Rocco, T. S., & Plakhotnik, M. S. (2009). Literature reviews, conceptual frameworks, and theoretical frameworks: Terms, functions, and distinctions. Human Resource Development Review, 8(1), 120–130.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1994). Grounded theory methodology: An overview. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 273–285). SAGE.

Tight, M. (2004). Research into higher education: An atheoretical community of practice? Higher Education Research & Development, 23(4), 395–411.

Author Bio

Tang T. Heng is an Assistant Professor at the Nanyang Technological University—National Institute of Education. By studying what happens when people and ideas circulate across borders, she highlights issues related to diversity and education through a comparative and international education lens. Concurrently, her research foregrounds the role sociocultural contexts play in shaping the values and behaviors of learners/teachers, and how they adapt to different contexts. Tang was conferred the Comparative and International Education Society’s Study Abroad and International Students SIG Early Career Award in 2019. Her research has been published in international refereed journals like Journal of Studies in International Education and Studies in Higher Education. She can be reached via email at tangtang.heng@nie.edu.sg.

Research Highlighted:

Geng Wang & Lesley Doyle (2020): Constructing false consciousness: vocational college students’ aspirations and agency in China, Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 1-18. DOI: 10.1080/13636820.2020.1829008

Read about Dr Wang’s other article here.

ABSTRACT

Individual academic achievement is highly valued in Chinese society, with vocational education students positioned at the bottom of the educational hierarchy and suffering considerable societal prejudice. In this paper we present new findings from the choice-making experiences of students in two vocational education colleges in China, how they are perceived by their teachers, and how, in the context of their negatively-stereotyped status, they perceive themselves. Drawing on the Marxist notion of false consciousness to help understand the agency of these students, we found that almost all perceived themselves as being agentic and having control over their destiny. They felt they only had themselves to blame for the stereotyping to which they were subjected. One student had not adopted this mindset and was critical of the exam system. We argue that the perceived agency of the majority of the students resonates strongly with the neoliberal values which are associated with responsibilisation, and which have been encouraged in China since the 1970s with the beginning of the Reform Era. The evidence from our study also suggests, however, that it is possible for young people, by their own efforts, to move away from the state of false consciousness.

Introduction

In this paper, we focus on vocational education college students. We present new findings from interviews and focus groups with a sample of these students and their teachers and locate the findings within the debate on the concept of ‘youth agency’. The paper seeks theoretical purchase on the ‘agency’ of Chinese VET students through an innovative exploration of the Marxist notion of ‘false consciousness’.

Theoretical framework

Michael Apple, in Ideology and Curriculum, has been examining why Marxist understanding has not been more impactful in Anglo-Western educational investigation (Apple 2019, 135). He argues that the neglect of this scholarly tradition says more about the fear-laden past of society than it does about the merits of the (all too often unexplored) tradition, which indicates it is difficult ‘for there to be acceptance of a position which holds that most social and intellectual categories are themselves valuative in nature and may reflect ideological commitments’ (136). Apple argues that the Marxist tradition illuminates the tendencies for unwarranted and often unconscious domination, alienation and repression within educational institutions and promotes conscious individual and collective emancipatory activity (137). The Marxist tradition also has the potential to connect the students’ perspectives with White and Wyn’s (1998) ‘existing social relations’ (referred to above), and to locate them within a broad political economy approach. We concur with Sukarieh and Tannock (2015) who argue that ‘to understand the significance of youth in global society, it is … necessary to look well beyond youth and young people in and of themselves’ (4). Most significantly, we argue that the concept of false consciousness carries with it the assumption that it is possible for young people to think their way out of their predicament.

Findings

The findings of the study suggest that vocational colleges or programmes were chosen by students as the last resort or ‘leftover option’ in a bid to obtain an educational credential. The students’ lower test scores in the College Entrance Exam (CEE) had automatically limited their capacity to be ‘free choosers’. Nearly all of those in the student sample, and all in the teacher sample regarded the CEE exam as efficient in what they saw as weeding out weak students. To most of the students, ‘it (the exam system) is pretty fair’. The students’ sense of personal failure and inadequacy is echoed by the teachers stereotyping of them as unmotivated students with a habit of ‘slacking off’, or ‘bad seeds’, from which nothing worthwhile can grow, or poor learners who never ‘get’ the textbook. Rather than having an ‘agentic’ feeling, the vocational students felt fatalistic or powerless when they were ‘dropped down’ and had to relegate themselves to vocational colleges or forego the opportunity of going to college at all.

Discussion and Conclusion

We conclude that the young people’s interpretations of their situation – that it is their personal failure in not achieving better test scores (which they associate with ensuring a better life) are evidence of false consciousness, as conceived by Engels (1893) and Marx and Engels (1846). The young people have formed false perceptions of their own agency in the belief that they have the power to control their own achievement level and, through this, that they have freedom of choice to determine their own futures. The current exam system has secured active collusion from these vocational students at the same time as it generates the poor outcomes. The students are under the impression that they only have themselves to blame and they should take responsibility their own misfortune. This perceived sense of ‘agency’ – in the sense we understand here as control of one’s own destiny along with the sense of personal responsibility for making choices – is, we argue, created by false consciousness which helps to sustain the hegemonic control neoliberal economies need to survive. The perspective of Jia, as the only exception who did not accept the unified ‘false’ discourse, offers evidence that young people can have the capability to move away from the state of false consciousness. We conclude that the concept of false consciousness provides the opportunity for a critical turn in understanding agency, which for too long has been used in the drive to find some form of self-driven personal empowerment in young people, even when the evidence for it is thin. False consciousness offers a different theoretical perspective within the educational community, which can, as Apple (2019) explains: ‘contribute to the creation of alternative programmes of research and development that challenge the commonsense assumptions that underpin the field’ (Apple 2019). We suggest that this theoretical perspective could further improve our understanding of youth decision-making outside of VET and in countries other than China.

Author bio:

Dr Geng Wang currently works as a researcher at School of Education, Tianjin University, China. She is also a member of Tianjin Institute for Emerging Engineering Education. She holds a PhD (University of Glasgow) in education. Her research interests revolve around education and work transitions through the lifecourse, particularly in relation to vocational education and training for young people, what influences transitions and their impact on learning and development. She can be contacted via geng.wang0313@hotmail.com.