Opposition Without Collective Identity: Understanding Rural Public School Students' Oppositional Behaviors in China

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: The Meaning of Place in Rural Education

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand students’ oppositional behaviors and identities in China’s rural public education contexts. Data were collected in two rural secondary public schools through qualitative research methodology. This study reveals that some Chinese rural students had constructed “half-rural student” identity, and put themselves in the middle position of social hierarchy. Even though they performed oppositional behaviors, they still viewed education as a key channel to achieve upward social mobility. This paper suggests that students in this study have not constructed collective identity resulting from their money-based understandings of social position and the special urban-to-rural mobility model. It is different from resistance that is understood as based on collective identity.

Authors

• Weijian Wang, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Liang Du, Beijing Normal University