Speaker: Chiang Yi-lin (Assistant Professor of Sociology, New York University Shanghai)

Time: 9:30am–11:00am, 20 Oct 2023 (Friday, HK Time)

Venue: Zoom (ZOOM Link will be sent to registered audience after finished the e-registration.)

Registration: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/mycuform/view.php?id=2092293

Abstract:
Study Gods is an ethnography that follows 28 elite Chinese youths over time and around the world. It asks how elite high schoolers in China prepare for global competition, and how they become incredibly successful at it. Using data from seven years of fieldwork and follow-ups (2012–2020), I find that elite high school students learn three important lessons that help them pursue global elite status. First, they must understand the setup of the status system: they learn to recognize and acquire the characteristics that are prized, while avoiding those that are not. Second, they maintain status by performing sets of status-based behaviors, which guide daily their interactions with peers, teachers, and parents. Third, with the help of resourceful parents, they learn to prepare for contingency by having backup plans. Elite Chinese students hone these skills as they enter college campuses in China, the US, and the UK and interact with peers from around the world. After graduation, they embark on careers on New York Wall Street, in Hong Kong Central, or Singapore’s Central Business District. No matter where they are, they continue to apply the same skills in interactions with colleagues and supervisors. Study Gods announces the arrival of the Chinese elite in global status competition and calls for the acknowledgement of a rising group of transnational global elites.

About the Speaker:
Yi-Lin Chiang is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at NYU Shanghai. Before joining NYU Shanghai, she was Assistant Professor of Sociology at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Chiang’s research focuses on educational stratification and intergenerational status transmission in greater China. Her ethnographic work examines the processes and outcomes of elite status transmission. In other lines of research, she uses Taiwanese panel data to explore how schools and families contribute to educational inequality. Her book, Study Gods (Princeton University Press), received the Pierre Bourdieu Award for the Best Book in Sociology of Education from the Sociology of Education section of the American Sociological Association.