‘They are bad seeds’: stereotyping habitus in Chinese VET colleges

Wang, G. (2021) ‘They are bad seeds’: stereotyping habitus in Chinese VET colleges. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 42(7), pp. 1008-1021. (doi: 10.1080/01425692.2021.1959299)

Abstract

VET colleges in China are positioned at the bottom of the educational hierarchy, absorbing the ‘left-over’ students with ‘less desirable’ academic records. VET students are stereotyped as ‘stupid and lazy’ youths suffering considerable prejudice in Chinese society. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical insights, this paper investigates the experiences of students in VET colleges and their teachers’ perspectives on them. I explore how teachers’ stereotyping habitus is practised in VET colleges and how it affects their students’ learning experiences. The findings demonstrate that the teachers’ pedagogic practices in class impose a designated cultural arbitrary via a hidden curriculum. The students adopted  ‘passing time’  attitudes in class as a response to their teachers’ ‘misrecognition’. The paper examines how a system of unequal power relations in Chinese VET college is maintained and legitimised, which contributes to the ‘transmission’ and reproduction of the very culture that has shaped the standing of VET in Chinese society.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Wang, Dr Geng
• Authors: Wang, G.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Journal Name: British Journal of Sociology of Education
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 0142-5692
• ISSN (Online): 1465-3346
• Published Online: 09 August 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 The Author
• First Published: First published in British Journal of Sociology of Education 42(7): 1008-1021
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License