An Empirical Illustration of Social Legitimation through Hegemony: Narratives of Students from a Community College on Seeking a Transferal in Hong Kong

Abstract

ABSTRACT It is argued that social legitimation is possible through hegemony whereby people of a given social system see the system as legitimate through the naturalness of a way of thinking about issues of all kinds. But, how this naturalness is articulated against a certain context is empirically under-explored. This study attempts to address this issue by referring to the narratives of 39 students from a community college on their transferal experiences against the neo-liberal capitalist context of contemporary Hong Kong for an illustration. Community colleges in Hong Kong – unlike their counterparts in the USA serving multiple functions – are essentially viewed as an inferior institution where students who fail to get into university through public examinations seek a second chance through the transfer function of associate degree; consequently, an associate degree is basically not valued as a terminal degree but for its transfer function, serving to bridge community-college students to university, local, or overseas. Given this perceived role and view of community colleges, five plots – all operating with a ‘loser–winner’ framework – of the narratives of community-college students are distinguished. Moreover, three common themes emerging from the narratives are also discussed: education is naturally an instrumental means to social success; the talented and industrious will inevitably be rewarded; and, there is no fair system. The hegemonic aspect of instrumentalism, meritocracy, and the inevitability of inequality embedded in neo-liberalism is demonstrated in respondents being adaptive in a neo-liberal capitalist context and their pragmatic views on educational and/or social success.