Social inequality in a ‘hyper-mobile’ society: intra-national mobilities and formal education in China

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study builds upon existing research on educational mobilities in China by exploring how families from across the socio-economic spectrum have utilised various forms of spatial mobility practices to access educational opportunities and to achieve social mobility through education. We draw on data from forty interviews with Master’s degree students at an elite Chinese university from three social class factions: ‘non-affluent’, ‘lower-middle’, and ‘upper-middle-class’, and employ the concept of motility or the capacity to be mobile, alongside concepts from Bauman and Giddens’ work on mobility and modernity, to understand the socially classed nature of mobility. We argue that an often overlooked ‘educational mobility imperative’ in China shapes the trajectories of many, but manifests in markedly different ways along lines of social class. While students from various social backgrounds may be mobile, what is important is the level of control individuals and families have over the variety and frequency of mobility they undertake.