Living under the ticking clock: students’ time perspective in China’s county-level high schools

• In Event: Resilience, Resistance and Protest: Voices from Students, Teachers, and Parents in China

Proposal

Not all protests are overt, forceful or direct. Sometimes, when there is a large gap in the power relationship between the two parties, protests can only be found in covert ways. But it doesn’t mean that the protest isn’t there, on the contrary, the hidden protests can reveal individual’s agency under certain circumstances. In this essay, students’ perspective of time will be analysed as the hidden protest of the students as their living experience in China’s county-level high schools.

In 2020, there are 7,200 county-level high schools in China, accounting for 50% of the total number of high schools. However, in recent years scholars have observed the falling of these schools as it’s more and more difficult for its students to receive high marks in the Gaokao(China’s college entrance examination), so that the possibilities for these students to be admitted in renowned universities are becoming less and less. In order to make up for its disadvantage, county-level high schools choose to apply militarized management for its students, which emphasis on setting strict time schedule (6:10-22:20, Monday to Saturday), diminishing free time(two-day-holiday once a month) and seeing Gaokao as the ultimate goal for students. As a result, students there have developed unique time perspectives.

This research is guided by the sociology of time, more specifically the structure of time perspective by L. A. Coser and R. L. Coser, which divided people’ s time perspective into conformist, voluntary instrumental associations, utopian view of time and so on. The data is collected through a field work in a county-level high school in China, during which on-site participant observation and semi-structured individual interviews are conducted. The findings of the research are as follows:

Firstly, even under high pressure, students are looking for rationalizations for their schedules and choose to adjust themselves to it rather than protest for it. Most students in county-level high schools will complain about their time schedule from time to time, but none of them tried to change it. Because it has disciplined their bodies and minds, and they accept that this arrangement is for their good. Secondly, students have developed high sense of time morality, which makes them feel guilty whenever their time is not devoted to study. Thirdly, when asked whether past, present, or future is more important, most students will choose present, because they firmly believe that the hard work of the present can build a solid foundation for their future. In other words, they don’t want to think too much about the future for it could be too uncertain, focusing on the present may help them to gain more certainty.

To sum up, this research focuses on the living experience of students in China’s county-level high schools. It uses the perspective of time to try to understand the students’ lives, and showing their inside world of a quiet protest.

Authors

• Tianqing Bai

• YUNYUN QIN