Bonding or Bridging: How Disadvantaged Students Navigate Misfit in an Elite Chinese University

• In Event: Sociology of Education Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7. Belonging in Selective and Elite Institutions

Abstract

Previous research on students from rural areas or urban working-class in elite higher education often emphasizes experiences of marginality and “lack of fit”, but pays less attention to the strategies students actively implement to manage these constraints, especially how group ties and relational networks provide support. Drawing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with undergraduates from disadvantaged background at an elite Chinese university, this study finds that most disadvantaged students consolidate small co-origin circles which provide dense companionship and emotional security, yet are governed by a reciprocity-based moral economy that discourages targeted help-seeking and limits access to tailored guidance. A smaller subset instead integrates into broader, urban-dominated networks, actively seeks advice from upperclassmen, and later “pays it forward” to junior, reframing obligations as intergenerational reciprocity. Parental prompting enables early cultural engagements that foster transferable cultural skills and a trial-oriented disposition for navigating unfamiliar settings, which contribute to the second pathway, but these same investments also carry hidden costs by entrenching conditional expectations and subtle surveillance that strain autonomy in students’ daily life. This study advances research on post-admission inequality by shifting attention from marginalized experiences to different collective strategies through which disadvantaged students actively navigate elite institutions.

Authors

• Hele Lin, Tsinghua University

• Yourong Yao, Nanyang Technological University