The Time Inheritors: How time inequalities shape higher education mobility in China

Group Submission Type: Book Launch

Description of Session

In The Time Inheritors, Cora Lingling Xu argues that inter-generational time inequalities underpin the deeply unequal education mobility in China, ranging from rural-to-urban, to cross-border and transnational mobility. Drawing on nearly a decade of multi-sited field research with over 100 educationally mobile students and their parents, Xu proposes the concept of ‘time inheritance’ which is a social mechanism that underpins intergenerational time inequalities found at familial, national and international levels. It captures a continuum of time privilege, embodied by the most disadvantaged through to the most privileged youth in China. The Time Inheritors facilitates a systematic exposition of how China’s rural-urban divide, class and political inequalities intersect with the global dominance of Western scholarships and higher education institutions. It opens previously unavailable avenues to understand inequalities across students of ‘vertically’ differentiated origins in China and furthers our critical understanding of what shapes China and the world today and tomorrow.

The Time Inheritors makes three signal contributions to the study of education mobility, time and China. First, it is among the first attempts to paint a comprehensive picture of how inequalities are manifested ‘vertically’ across students of diverse social origins in contemporary China. Second, this book provides essential theoretical tools for disentangling how inter-generational transfers of privilege or deprivation are manifested through time. The notion of ‘time inheritance’ and its associated concepts such as ‘borrowed time’ and ‘banked time’ will be useful tools for social science researchers in the fields including sociology of time, migration and education studies. Third, through the concept of ‘time inheritance’ and its unique data sets, this book demonstrates robust links and workings where China’s domestic education inequalities are closely enmeshed with unequal relations across countries at the global level; these insights are valuable for furthering our critical understanding of what shapes China and the world today and tomorrow.

Sub Unit

• Book launches and Workshops / Book Launch

Chair

• Ryan Allen, Soka University of America

Book Launch Presenter

• Cora Lingling Xu, Durham University UK

Discussant

• Jinting Wu, State University of New York, University at Buffalo