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

• In Event: Social Stratification and Student Outcomes

Proposal

1.Objectives
In the context of globalization and the knowledge economy, internships have become a key bridge between education and employment. Research shows internships are not only vocational preparation but also influence youth identity and socialization (Billett, 2011; Eraut, 2007). As education-to-work transitions gain attention globally, internships are gaining institutional and cultural value.
In China, graduates are seen as vital national resources; employment and social integration receive unprecedented policy focus (Ministry of Education, 2025). The Class of 2025 is projected at 12.22 million, up 430,000 from 2024 (Ministry of Education, 2024). Rising numbers and a slowing economy have fueled discourse about the “toughest job market.” Tech and internet industries, with high pay and prestige, are top destinations for elite graduates.
Building on Willis’s Learning to Labour (1977), which showed class reproduction through school resistance, this study asks: In today’s seemingly meritocratic digital economy, do elite Chinese students’ internships constitute a new form of “compliant reproduction”? How do they shape understandings of success, elitism, and labor? Based on 2023–2025 ethnographic fieldwork with top-university students interning at major tech firms, the study examines cultural (re)production in these internships.

2. Perspective
Using cultural reproduction theory, the study focuses on identity shifts during elite students’ Big Tech internships. Bowles and Gintis (1976) argue schooling mirrors capitalist production; norms and hierarchies reproduce class. Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) highlight education’s role in legitimizing dominant culture via cultural capital and symbolic violence.
However, reproduction is not fully deterministic. Willis (1977) and Giroux (1983) stress resistance and negotiation in cultural transmission. Internships, as transitional education–work sites, reveal these dynamics.
Key questions: Do elite Chinese students extend, rework, or reject campus cultural values in corporate tech culture? How do they manage cultural shifts? What does this mean for professional identity? The study frames internships as arenas for cultural negotiation, where identity is reshaped and social meanings contested.
3. Methods
This qualitative study combines two stages of data collection:
Phase 1 (Aug 2023–Jun 2025): Autoethnography by a team member who completed three Big Tech internships, documenting identity, language, and habit shifts. This insider view shaped the research questions.
Phase 2 (Jan–Jun 2025): Eleven semi-structured interviews with elite students from diverse schools, internship lengths, job roles, and genders. Interviews (60–90 min, in Mandarin) explored cultural tensions, adaptation, and identity change; recordings were transcribed and translated for thematic analysis.
This mixed approach combines embodied micro-level experiences and broader patterns of meaning-making.
4. Data Sources

Autoethnographic field notes and journals from three Big Tech internships.
One-on-one semi-structured interviews, recruited via Xiaohongshu to ensure heterogeneity.
Supplementary artifacts: internship logs and social media posts (WeChat Moments, Xiaohongshu) reflecting informal self-representations and peer interactions.
Triangulating these sources allows analysis of cultural continuity and rupture across academic and corporate contexts.

5. Results
Internships mediate cultural capital transformation, identity negotiation, and class reproduction; they are more than skill-building.
Entry: Internships for “High Salary” and “Prestige”
Elite students leverage symbolic capital (prestigious universities, awards, exchanges) to access Big Tech. Firms prefer “Double First-Class” graduates, reinforcing hierarchies. Internships serve as elite identity confirmation and prestige, signaling “good jobs” and who deserves investment. As one student said: “With Tsinghua or Peking on your resume, HR pays more attention.”
Mismatch: Internship as a Selection Mechanism or Learning Process
Students expect internships as learning spaces but find intense competition and opaque rules. Programs act as selection mechanisms—probation ratings, project evaluations—more than talent cultivation. Interns become “candidates under scrutiny,” managing performance, image, and emotion. Unlike campus meritocracy, success depends on reading evaluators’ implicit expectations. Internships become high-intensity “boot camps” training students to be “worth selecting.”
Becoming: Internships as “Compliant Reproduction” or “Romantic Resistance”
Many start with romantic ideals but move toward compliance. Internships accelerate elite identity construction and class consolidation. Students internalize performance logic and accept “996” (9 a.m.–9 p.m., 6 days) culture; Big Tech resumes are seen as essential capital. Organizational structures (alumni networks, mentor recommendations) smooth transitions from “elite students” to “tech elites,” revealing class closure: elites reproducing elites.
Despite recognizing alienation, most willingly comply, rationalizing this as a “rite of passage.” This creates a “cognitive paradox of compliance”: awareness of issues yet choosing obedience, echoing Bourdieu’s (1984) “agentic compliance” and Willis’s (1977) “self-curse.” A few retain critical distance, but most shift from “critical observers” to institutional actors. One said: “I dislike the pace, but not joining Big Tech feels like betraying my past efforts.”
6. Significance
This study extends classic sociology of education to Chinese elite internships, enriching cultural reproduction literature. It also highlights internships as overlooked mediating practices bridging academic training and workplace socialization, crucial for identity formation and social structure reproduction.

Authors

• Jia Ren, East China Normal Univerisity

• Xinyue Zhou, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)