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Successful rural students in China’s elite universities: habitus transformation and inevitable hidden injuries?

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Abstract

Current literature suggests two kinds of congruence that come into play when students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds enter elite universities: academic fit and social fit. Yet, in most of the studies on habitus transformation, the differences between the two are seldom mentioned. This may imply that the transformation of one aspect guarantees success in the transformation of the other aspect. In this article, we present the data from an ongoing longitudinal study on a group of academically successful rural students at four Chinese elite universities. We will show how they start with a compartmentalized fit between their original habitus and the elite milieu they enter, and how this pattern tends to produce two different types of outcomes: “habitus transformation” and “habitus hysteresis.” Importantly, with either of these outcomes, these students do not have to experience “hidden injuries of the class,” alienating themselves from families and former peer groups.

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Funding

This work was supported by the General Research Council, Hong Kong; under Grant 17617916, and the National Natural Science Foundation, under Grant 71774056.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China

    Ailei Xie

  2. Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Diane Reay

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  1. Ailei Xie
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  2. Diane Reay
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Correspondence to Ailei Xie.

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Xie, A., Reay, D. Successful rural students in China’s elite universities: habitus transformation and inevitable hidden injuries?. High Educ 80, 21–36 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00462-9

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