Social reproduction, geographical mobility, and cross-border school choices : a Bourdieusian analysis of Chinese middle class families’ education strategies /

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Student Theses

2025

Guan, Yanxi

Thesis

This study examines how middle-class families from mainland China strategically navigate cross-border educational fields when relocating to Hong Kong for their children’s education. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and field, the research asks: How do different forms of capital transform across educational contexts, and can geographical mobility alone secure educational advantage and middle-class reproduction? The study conducted 17 in-depth semi-structured interviews with middle-class Chinese parents regarding their experiences with school choice in both mainland China and Hong Kong, analysing the data through narrative analysis. The findings suggest that the advantages associated with school choice are field-specific. Parents who held privileged positions in mainland China’s educational system were unable to automatically transfer those advantages to Hong Kong’s system. The analysis identifies two distinct parental approaches. “Strategising” parents actively and continuously accumulate locally valued capital (including language proficiency, cultural knowledge, and social networks) to ensure their children’s academic success in the new field. In contrast, “positioning” parents assume that merely placing their children in Hong Kong’s educational field will guarantee success without ongoing capital acquisition. This distinction challenges assumptions about the rationality of middle-class education strategies, demonstrating that while geographical mobility functions as a class-based education strategy, it alone is insufficient for successful middle-class reproduction without corresponding efforts to adapt to new field conditions

LG51.H43 Ma 2025eb Guany

https://educoll.lib.eduhk.hk/records/kYrfFCt2