What barriers keep Chinese rural students from enrolling in or integrating into elite universities?--- An Oral History Research method

• In Event: Examining the quality of higher education: Achievements, barriers, and resistance

Proposal

Higher education in China is currently entering a stage of universalization; the gross enrollment ratio has increased by 59.6%.The chance to enroll in institutions extends beyond the early years.However, the middle-ranked universities are still overcrowded with rural students.Few students from rural areas enroll in top colleges, which is the result of many complicated issues.The issue with rural families' lack of social and cultural capital is one of the major contributing reasons, and rural kids' obstinate experiences with mandatory schooling are another.As a result, they suffered a loss of proficiency with metropolitan kids and had little opportunities to enroll in premier universities.Although it is simple to get into colleges in China now that higher education has entered the universalization stage, this also results in a devaluation of education.Students from middle-ranked universities currently have a low level of competency in the job market.In other words, although rural students now have more opportunities to attend universities than they had in the past, their ability to succeed in the labor market and advance personally still faces many challenges. As a result, the traditional social structure has been preserved, with a few rural students still defying the rules to attend institutions.What is the pathway to university taken by Chinese rural students?What challenges do rural Chinese students encounter at elite universities?these unquestionably subjects that merits in-depth research.
The paper used oral history, a branch of history and a technique for conducting historical research,which can be adapted for researchers who wish to learn about the participants’ life over an extended period of time and involves often asking the interviewee questions by a well-prepared interviewer.
Since the paper uses the educational journey of rural students as its central premise, it is crucial to capture the precise educational journey of rural students through oral history. I chose 15 Chinese rural students from elite Chinese universities who had all participated in intense Gaokao competitions as my research subjects. All of them were from rural areas and were students there.whereby there are seven interviews who are female and eight who are male.Additionally, their parents typically work seasonal jobs, are farmers, or are unemployed.They each attend one of five prestigious colleges that accepts students with high Gaokao scores.Additionally, they come from various regions of China, such as the Anhui province, Henan, Hunan, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Guizhou, Hei Longjiang, and so forth.I intend to completely describe the situation of typical rural pupils in China.
The author of the book “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life” illustrates the various cultural approaches to raising children in middle-class and working-class families.While working-class families intend to let their children develop naturally, middle-class families practice “collaborative development”.As a result, students from middle-class families have learned active cultural modes that are comparable to school cultures, which helps them integrate in at school.Rural pupils, in contrast, have never participated in major cultural edification, making their academic journey particularly challenging.
The findings of the study are listed below.(1).Gaokao and complete the intentional application are the first intersections in life:Many Chinese students view Gaokao as their major turning point in life. It is also referred to as a “compulsory course” by many Chinese students.However, there is a Gaokao-related deficiency among kids in rural areas.Some urban middle-class families are able to help their kids greatly and easily access the necessary information.Furthermore, they can raise their kids to be gifted, just like they were, so that they can benefit from the rule that gives students who excel in something extra credit.Chinese rural students cannot expect any of the aforementioned since rural families lack the resources to provide such support for their children.The only option for the rural students is to mechanically earn excellent grades.(2).Open a fresh page:step into the universities:On the one hand, students at elite colleges experience cultural reproduction differently from students at middle-ranked universities.Because of the low level of cultural capital in their parents, rural students are under additional strain.However, Chinese rural kids always appreciate receiving support from their professors, who in some ways serve as their “important other”.However, the impact of professors on rural students attending universities does not seem to be very clear.Therefore, university professors act as a “passive companion” for rural pupils.This partially prevents Chinese rural students from being fully assimilated into university culture, making rural students a marginalized population in higher education.(3).Following Gaokao, graduates have two options: enroll in a post-graduate program or find employment:Kaoyan is the most significant exam that serves as a prerequisite for post-graduate study.However, there is currently a very intense competition; the majority of recent graduates take the exam but fail, and just a small percentage of recent graduates pass the exam and become post-graduates.Additionally, Kaoyan is a time-wasting effort that also comes at a cost to the environment. Parents frequently show little interest in supporting their children's ideas.As a result, rural students frequently experience unconscious anxiety when making decisions.
Except The success of a student's education depends on their own efforts and the guidance of “important others”, who mostly refer to the student's parents and teachers.No matter what, students' significant others are required to create some educational settings, provide some educational background, and develop some educational guidelines. Only in this way can students progress and experience positive development in their families and schools.
The Ministry of Education should establish more policies to take care of the living conditions of rural students as part of the Chinese education system's increased focus on these pupils.Additionally, they place a focus on the rural students’ required education and raise the standard of the basic infrastructure in the countryside.Furthermore, university lecturers should develop their conversation skills to effectively interact with the rural students in order to help rural students adapt into the institutions.

Authors

• 林 欣 叶, 同济大学

• Yue Chen, Tongji University

• YUNXIA ZHANG, Tongji University

• Yuzhi Deng, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich