Learning to Labor: How Internships Reproduce the Culture of Elite Chinese College Students

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:45 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Roundtable Session 7: Student Learning and Development in College and Beyond

Abstract

This study examines how internships serve as key sites of cultural reproduction for elite Chinese university students entering Big Tech firms. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork—including autoethnography and in-depth interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025—it explores how students navigate identity, status, and cultural capital during the transition from education to employment. Framed within theories of cultural reproduction, the research reveals that internships are not merely opportunities for skills training, but powerful mechanisms that reinforce elite status, institutionalize meritocratic values, and normalize exploitative work cultures such as “996”. While some students initially express resistance, most ultimately engage in agentic compliance, internalizing the tech industry’s performance-driven logic as part of their elite identity formation.

Authors

• Xinyue Zhou, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• qian xiao peng, East China Normal University

• Hui Dong, East China Normal University