Bourdieu And Sino Foreign Higher Education

Bourdieu’s sociology has traditionally been confined to the limits of its French national context. This edited collection seeks to challenge these boundaries, applying Bourdieu’s analysis of practice to Chinese education as it gains relevance and attention around the globe. This book stems from the conviction that empirical investigation and conceptual inventiveness are needed to understand the historical and contextual particularities of Sino-foreign higher education. It brings the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu to the specificity of higher education in and for China and the multi-scalar complexity of higher education beyond the nation. Aggregating recent Bourdieu-informed investigations of empirical worlds of Sino-foreign higher education, the volume mainly considers two problems: structures and strategies of advantage behind institutional and individual action in Sino-foreign higher education; and student participation in the practices of that higher education. The volume probes the potential of Bourdieusian theory and methodology for understanding Chinese higher education beyond the nation. This book is written to engage with the intellectual work of both established scholars and higher degree research students within China and beyond. The empirical studies provide useful insights for educational leaders in Chinese higher education sectors and in the universities of English-dominant western countries where students and researchers from China have been a growing presence. The theoretical and methodological discussions will be pertinent to scholars who are interested in Bourdieu’s sociology and sociology of higher education.

"Bourdieu's sociology has traditionally been confined to the limits of its French national context. This edited collection seeks to challenge these boundaries, applying Bourdieu's analysis of practice to Chinese education as it gains relevance and attention around the globe. This book stems from the conviction that empirical investigation and conceptual inventiveness are needed to understand the historical and contextual particularities of Sino-foreign higher education. It brings the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu to the specificity of higher education in and for China and the multi-scalar complexity of higher education beyond the nation. Aggregating recent Bourdieu-informed investigations of empirical worlds of Sino-foreign higher education, the volume mainly considers two problems: structures and strategies of advantage behind institutional and individual action in Sino-foreign higher education; and student participation in the practices of that higher education. The volume probes the potential of Bourdieusian theory and methodology for understanding Chinese higher education beyond the nation. This book is written to engage with the intellectual work of both established scholars and higher degree research students within China and beyond. The empirical studies provide useful insights for educational leaders in Chinese higher education sectors and in the universities of English-dominant western countries where students and researchers from China have been a growing presence. The theoretical and methodological discussions will be pertinent to scholars who are interested in Bourdieu's sociology and sociology of higher education"--

This book uses Bourdieu’s sociological approach for research as a jumping-off point for framing our understandings and analyses of China and Chinese education. Three major themes—inequality, competition, and change—are explored across several theoretical and contextual bases. Bringing together top scholars in the field, the volume examines empirical studies that analyse social (im)mobility through education for students affected by the social divides of class, culture and rural/urban locations; teacher identity and the field of schooling in the current Chinese environment and going forward; and the university as an institution for the production of knowledge about education in the globalising academy. Offering insights into the historical and cultural context for China’s educational landscape, the contributions of this book revisit Bourdieusian concepts from a new empirical vantage point and bring together key studies that illuminate new pathways for the study of Chinese sociology of education.

Studies have shown the disparities between urban and rural students accessing elite universities in China, a phenomenon which Xu explores in this groundbreaking book. She argues that such disparities follow a Bourdieusian capital approach showing how urban parents increased capital benefits the advancement of their children’s education. This book qualitatively explores urban and rural students’ life stories prior to their elite university entry through interviews with both parents and students. It seeks a ‘reflective reappropriation’ of Bourdieu’s notions in understanding Chinese urban and rural students’ academic success. In addition to the implications for Chinese domestic and international scholars’ understanding of the mediating role of rurality, higher education access, and Chinese policy makers’ ongoing initiatives on the hukou reform, this book promotes the global reflections on the development and promotion of national analytical concepts in understanding contextualised educational issues to advance knowledge co-production. This engaging text will be of interest to students and researchers across the fields of global higher education and sociology of education in East Asia, as well as policymakers working towards increased participation, equity and social justice in higher education worldwide.

This book is the first international reference work to showcase the diversity of ways of using Bourdieu's sociological toolkit in educational research. Written by scholars based in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the UK, and the USA, the handbook provides a unique and cutting-edge picture of how Bourdieu has been both used and adapted in educational research globally. The book will be useful for those who may only have a cursory knowledge of Bourdieu's tools as well as those who are already familiar with Bourdieu's work. The chapters cover a wide range of topics including educational leadership, teacher preparation, space/place, educational policy, literacy education, marginalised students, and student mobility.

For more than 40 years, researchers have explored the utility of Bourdieu’s sociology for settings beyond the French and Algerian contexts of its origin. This edited collection has a focus on China, applying Bourdieu’s analysis of practice as Chinese education gains relevance and attention around the globe. Grounded in empirical research, Recontextualising and Recontesting Bourdieu in Chinese Education advances Bourdieu’s analysis of practice beyond national scales while producing new knowledge about the generation of habitus, mobilities, and languages in relation to Chinese education. Locating Chinese education within national and transnational contexts, this collection grapples with the structural invariances and inequivalences between Chinese education and society on the one hand, and social spaces in other parts of the world on the other hand. Through chapters that examine social mobility in the context of cross-border movement and delve into questions of language and power, this book recontests and problematises the use of Bourdieu’s sociology to theorise social classification and differentiation in China. This book is essential reading for Chinese educational researchers and practitioners, Bourdieusian scholars with particular interests in education, and sociologists of education broadly.

"Studies have shown the disparities between urban and rural students accessing elite universities in China, a phenomenon which Xu explores in this groundbreaking book. She argues that such disparities follow a Bourdieusian capital approach showing how urban parents increased capital benefits the advancement of their children's education. This book qualitatively explores urban and rural students' life stories prior to their elite university entry through interviews with both parents and students. It seeks a 'reflective reappropriation' of Bourdieu's notions in understanding Chinese urban and rural students' academic success. In addition to the implications for Chinese domestic and international scholars' understanding of the mediating role of rurality, higher education access and Chinese policy makers' on-going initiatives on the hukou reform, this book promotes the global reflections on the development and promotion of national analytical concepts in understanding contextualised educational issues to advance knowledge co-production. An engaging text that will be of interest to students and researchers across the fields of global higher education and sociology of education in East Asia, as well as policymakers working towards increased participation, equity and social justice in higher education worldwide"--