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since her student days, sociologist jiang yilin has been curious about the positions of people in relation to one another.

she was born and raised in taiwan. when she was in school, her first understanding of the gap between the rich and the poor was that the teacher asked the students to buy a ruler. she bought an ordinary ruler, but found that a classmate in the class spent 50 times the price to buy a ruler. "it's just a ruler!"

jiang yilin majored in anthropology as an undergraduate, and switched to sociology during her master's degree. during her studies, she developed a strong interest in social stratification theory, and more than a decade ago, while pursuing a doctorate at the university of pennsylvania, she shifted her research focus to social education.

before that, jiang yilin had an idealist's naive view of education. she believed that education was a ladder for mankind to move forward, and that people could equally obtain opportunities to improve themselves and rewrite their destiny. for example, as a child from an ordinary middle-class family in taiwan, she was able to enter a bigger and more distant world through education.

but reality soon corrected her idea. education sociologists around the world are pessimistic about the relationship between education and social stratification. instead of promoting fairness, education continues to exacerbate class differentiation. elite families have enough resources to ensure that the next generation completes the replication of elite status, while students from ordinary working-class families and lower-income families are in an unfair game. it has become increasingly difficult to achieve upward class mobility through education as the world's economic structure undergoes drastic changes.

during her doctoral studies, jiang yilin noticed that in western academia, research on the elite class was very popular. however, in east asian society where she grew up, there was no such research. in 2012, in order to understand the mechanism of cultivating elite students in east asian education, jiang yilin selected 28 students from five of the top ten high schools in beijing for field research, and eventually wrote the book "student gods: china's young elites on the road to global competition".

in jiang yilin's research, she defines students from the top 10% of families in the country as elites. she followed up with 28 students from several top high schools in beijing, from the international and domestic departments of the schools. the median income reported by the interviewed families was about twice the income standard of the top 10% of a family of three in chinese cities. except for one parent, all other parents said they were able to send their children to a private university in the united states for four years at their own expense. the parents of these families basically went to college in the late 1980s, and they were among the top 1% to 2% of the chinese population with the highest level of education at that time. many of them graduated from peking university and tsinghua university, some have graduate degrees, and a few have overseas exchange experience. among the 28 students, except for one, at least one of the parents of all the students is a senior manager or engaged in professional work.

during the investigation, jiang yilin attended classes, went shopping, ate and lived with these teenagers from wealthy families in beijing, visited their homes and schools, and shared their thoughts and secrets during adolescence. a world that has never been opened to the outside world accommodated jiang yilin's curiosity as a bystander and researcher.

jiang yilin watched these young people at the top of the pyramid embark on their predetermined life paths, witnessed their growth, transformation, and integration into the world, and gained a deeper understanding and cognition of the disparity in the world. the gap between people is far from being measured by a ruler that is 50 times the price.

this group of innocent teenagers, in the top middle school with the best resources, are accustomed to using their test scores and ease levels to divide themselves into different levels: academic genius, academic tyrant, academic scum, and academic weakling. different levels indicate their position in the group.

jiang yilin was amazed at the cruelty of this system, and was also worried about the hidden obsession with talent behind it - because it is undeniable that people who believe in and get high positions in this system are likely to continue to be in high positions after entering society. in other words, how they understand and perceive the world will largely affect what the future world will look like. "if future socioeconomic elites believe that the poor or the less educated masses are in a bad living situation due to a lack of innate ability, they are unlikely to object to the growing inequality around the world."

while she remains reflective and critical of the elite, she is also happy to see the entire society confront the various problems in education together, giving our society the opportunity and possibility to move further towards equality.

the following is our conversation with jiang yilin:

text | gold shell

editor | osprey

operations | bunny

m=daily people

j=jiang yilin

they are born with a very high sense of "deserve". i have outstanding grades and i deserve everything i have.

m: the origin of the book "study god" is that youuniversity of pennsylvaniawhen you were studying for your doctorate, you learned that sociologists paid much less attention to and research on elite education than on middle-class and lower-class education. what prompted you to start paying attention to this issue?

J：i was taking a course on family sociology at the time, and i read some books during that time, especially privilege, which was written by an american scholar, who examined the daily life of an elite school in the united states and described how the american elite consciousness and behavior were formed. the book was very interesting, but i felt that it could not reflect the situation in east asia that i knew, so i wanted to know what elite education in the east, especially in east asia, was like under different social situations. later, i started to contact any school or city that could support me in doing this topic.

at first, i contacted schools in taipei, which is my hometown after all, so i thought it would be easier, but in the end, all the schools i contacted rejected me, saying that high school students need to prepare for exams. then i contacted schools in shanghai, but they were rejected as well.

in comparison, the administrators of several schools in beijing were much more confident and open-minded. one of the principals told me directly that our school was in a period of growth and we were not afraid of being watched. so the topic was decided. of course, there were many other reasons. two academicians in beijing helped me connect and guarantee. in this way, i brought a trendy and relatively novel topic in american sociology to the mainland, and i started my own research in beijing.

m: for some interviewees, your status as a doctoral student at the university of pennsylvania objectively helped your research?

J：yes, i didn’t expect that the identity of a phd student at penn would have such an important influence at first, and i didn’t expect that parents would care so much. what’s more interesting is that for parents and teachers, they care but don’t seem to care that much. it doesn’t matter whether it’s penn or not, as long as it’s an ivy league school. i remember that i stayed in one school for a whole year, and many people would say to me when they saw me, “that”columbia universityfor many people, as the established goal of elite education, ivy league schools do have a halo about them.

m: before starting this topic, you must have come into contact with a large number of elite students from mainland china when you were abroad. what was your impression of them at that time?

J：students who go to the west from the mainland to study, to a certain extent, represent the new generation of chinese elites in the context of globalization. i wrote in my book that for these young people who come from wealthy families, live a comfortable life, and receive world-class education, "they can boost local luxury car sales by going to american universities, and their tuition fees in europe can support the operation of european private schools."

some media reports are also keen to portray similar group images as evidence of china's rise. when i was studying at the university of pennsylvania, i also came into contact with mainland students from all over the country. compared with the exaggerated images in the media stories, i saw more of a group of young people who worked hard and struggled all the time. but at that time, i didn't think of them as an elite group. later, my research in beijing corrected many of my ideas. in fact, most of the students who can go there to study, if not relying on scholarships, must have been supported by their families. objectively, they certainly belong to the elite class. compared with the majority of groups in society, their family backgrounds are very good, and the school resources are also very rich. more importantly, they themselves are also very hardworking. to be honest, from the perspective of a classmate looking at a classmate, i think they are a group of very respectable opponents. that is, they have everything, their families are rich, their schools are strong, and they are also very hardworking.

▲ photo/ tv series "castle in the sky"

m: but in terms of sociological research, it is actually customary to be critical of the elite class. will this cause you to face contradictions in your subsequent investigations and research? when you came into contact with these elite students in beijing, when did you realize that these children were "privileged"?

J：there are indeed contradictory feelings. when i first came into contact with them, they were just teenagers with the innocence and cuteness of teenagers. but when you include them in sociological research and in a broader perspective, you will quickly realize that the class they are in, the resources they have at their disposal, and the opportunities they have obtained are far more than those of children from ordinary and low-income families.

to be specific, it was only when i finished the investigation and returned to the united states to do the analysis that i really realized that they were a group of "privileged" children. because when we were together, on the one hand, i tried very hard to fit in, and i wanted to know what they were thinking and try my best to see the world from their perspective. so at the beginning, i didn't have that kind of imagination about them. but when i did the final analysis, i realized that my notes were full of records of these children showing me their different abilities or privileges. there were really too many of these events when i was doing the sample analysis.

for example, they can make demands on parents and teachers regardless of time and place. they are basically a group of young people who can do whatever they want in their own little world. to use a more academic definition, they are born with a very high sense of "deservingness". i have outstanding grades, so i deserve everything in front of me. after spending a year and a half with them, even i think these are very normal things.

after returning to the united states, i discussed my experiences in beijing with my mentor, including with the editor of the english version of "the god of learning". it was then that i realized that perhaps i was too involved in the field research process, or when i entered an elite environment, i took everything for granted over time. at first, i ignored the "privileges" of these children.

m: you need to immerse yourself when doing field work, and you need to detach yourself when doing analysis.

J：yes, i come into contact with these young people every day, and i think each of them is very cute, and i can say that they have no critical consciousness. i am just an older sister and a friend, so when i later changed to an analyst, this change was the most difficult thing in the entire research, from an older sister and a friend to an objective and neutral researcher, and sociology requires us to look at everything from a critical perspective as much as possible.

m: can you give some more specific examples of how elite students interact with teachers in school? in what ways are their privileges reflected?

J：first of all, the schools these students attend are themselves proof of their identities, and all kinds of rumors will circulate among the students. for example, for a period of time, a famous teacher in the school will suddenly disappear mysteriously for a while. although there is no official news, the students firmly believe that their teachers are likely to be members of the college entrance examination question setting group.

in school, these students even have a community of interests with their teachers. the better their grades are, the more benefits the teachers will get. some teachers will instinctively focus their energy on students with better grades, which to a certain extent also fosters students' sense of privilege. the academic geniuses and top students will naturally think that teachers' help should be available at any time.

a student was very anxious during the application process of ivy league schools. she felt that her materials were not well written. on the last night before the application deadline, it was already past 10 pm. the student naturally called the teacher and asked him to help her revise the materials.

she was very direct and had no embarrassment. she even knew that making a request to the teacher at this time would make the teacher unhappy, but she also knew that the teacher would definitely meet her request in the end. elite students have always enjoyed similar privileges in their interactions with the world around them. they naturally believe that they deserve everything in front of them and that they should be valued and treated as a priority.

m: you visited some students’ homes. what details did you observe at the family level?

J：the elite parents i met in my research have many things in common: they are all influential and have abundant resources. these parents regard the preparation of their only child for school as a family project, and devote all their wealth and connections to it. for example, they can obtain recommendation letters for their children from prestigious people in society, or publish their children's articles and invite the principal to write a preface, which is unimaginable for ordinary families. many times, people have privileges without knowing it.

within the family, because these parents regard their children's education as their top priority, this high level of support for their children has inadvertently cultivated a sense of privilege among the children of the elite. i once went to a student's home. his parents were actually at home that day, but i hardly heard any sound throughout the afternoon except for his mother answering a phone call in a very low voice near dusk. i asked the child what his parents usually did at home, and he told me that his parents were watching tv next door. i said i thought they were taking a nap because there was no sound at all. he shrugged and said that it was because they muted the tv.

there was also an educated mother who suddenly received a call from her daughter one day, asking her to help make a poster. the mother quickly printed out a poster the size of a human figure. but when i mentioned this incident again later, no one paid attention to this detail. they didn't think it was something worth mentioning. this seemingly simple help was, of course, a privilege that they were not aware of.

▲ photo/ movie "parasite"

what they have been exposed to since childhood is that they are the best, so they have to go to tsinghua university, peking university, and ivy league schools. it is unimaginable for their life to deviate from this track.

m: what surprised you most during the research process?

J：when i first arrived in beijing, my topic was completely different from what it is now. i originally wanted to study "how elite students choose schools", but i didn't pursue this direction in the end. instead, i ended up writing a study on the student status system. the four levels of weak students, poor students, top students, and god students were told to me by the middle school students i interviewed. at that time, i was surprised by these elite students in beijing. they consciously and skillfully distinguished each other from their classmates, and defined and understood the world around them based on this. usually, when they mentioned a certain student, they would naturally mention which one was the top student, which one was the poor student, and which one was the god-like figure that everyone worshipped.

in taiwan, although grades will affect students' mutual perception and social interaction in many aspects, people usually do not label themselves and others so directly, and there are not many such stereotypes.

for the top high schools in beijing that i researched, objectively speaking, these high schools are their business cards. before entering these high schools, the students are screened very strictly based on their household registration, family background, and learning ability. the children who have the opportunity to enter these high schools have very unusual family backgrounds. the small group of these children with the best grades are naturally the pearls at the top of the pyramid.

m: grades determine a student’s value in a group. what impact does this systematic distinction have on the way these elite students perceive the world around them?

J：i interviewed a boy who was once a poor student. he suddenly started to work hard in the second half of his sophomore year and eventually became a top student. he was later admitted to fudan university. in the summer after the college entrance examination, i asked him to have coffee. when we talked about high school classmates, he naturally mentioned that in his high school career, grades were almost the only way to get the attention of people around him. "if i don't have good grades, i won't have a place. i can only be buried in the crowd. then i don't exist." he would say this directly.

i immediately refuted him. i didn't agree with this way of distinguishing people, but he told me calmly: "it's been a month since the college entrance examination. i have forgotten a lot of unimportant people, such as those who did not do well in the exam and those who did not score high. if you are not better than others, it is normal to be forgotten. why should someone remember you? there is no reason."

▲ photo/ tv series "little joy"

m: the outside world usually has a set moral expectation about the elite class. for these young people who grew up in pampering and regard this pampering as commonplace, apart from their own excellence and good living conditions, have you observed in them qualities such as responsibility, sympathy, reflection on inequality, and concern for social injustice?

J：as i said just now, when i first got along with them, i didn't feel that the social resources they occupied would cause social injustice. one thing is very important. i think this may also be a success of compulsory education or high school education in mainland china. these adolescent children have a very strong desire for knowledge. courses such as history, geography and politics are very popular with them. many children have mastered knowledge far beyond the requirements of examinations.

they all care about social problems in the real world. they discuss poverty and education in remote areas, where children have to bring their own desks, chairs and benches to school. i remember when i first arrived in beijing, the news often reported issues such as cramped living quarters, urban villages, and the right of migrant workers' children to receive education. these social realities that also exist and occur in beijing have not been isolated from the vision of elite students. in this regard, i think beijing children do better than taiwanese children. taiwanese children are not very critical of society. they may be more so now, but 10 years ago they were not very critical of society. 10 years ago, this group of elite high school students in beijing were full of critical spirit. they felt that there were many problems in society. there were many problems in real society that urgently needed to be solved. only by solving these problems can society become better. so i think that at their age, they have enough insight into social problems.

m: you tracked them for seven years. one question is, to what extent will the qualities we mentioned above affect their future life choices?

J：this is a very important issue in the process of the elite class completing self-replication. because of their elite status, these students, to a certain extent, have a fixed life path - that is, to become the next generation of elites. i think this can be seen as a kind of social shackle. they are a group of elite teenagers. the elite class has its own established rules, and these children need to conform to these rules. the previous generation of elites or the atmosphere of the entire society are always telling them what the most important things are, and they need to get the most important things. as for other issues, including social fairness, justice, and inequality between people that they cared strongly about in their teenage years, to a greater extent, they only constitute their cognition of the whole world in the process of adulthood, like a kind of youthful blood and enthusiasm for the world. but in the end, most of them will still become people who conform to society and become a new generation of elites.

m: what do you think caused this result?

J：if the people who have the most resources and the most status in a society are committed to changing social inequality, and such changes are encouraged and recognized by the public, then young children may become such people. but if our society thinks that the most important thing is that everyone should work hard to make a lot of money, get a high position, have a good job, and live a rich life, then children will become such people.

this group of elite students have been taught since childhood that they are the best, so they have to go to tsinghua university, peking university, and ivy league schools. it is unimaginable for their lives to deviate from this track.

▲ picture/ movie "bad genius"

m: this track is shaped by the participation of the whole society.

J：yes. we can recall that every year before and after the college entrance examination, what do our media, the internet, and our entire society pay the most attention to? the push notifications i received on my mobile phone are almost all about how many students from a certain school were admitted to tsinghua and peking university, and how many candidates had a total score of more than 700. the college entrance examination score release has become a critical moment in life. the atmosphere of our entire society is like this, it is very single. so for the group of children i surveyed, they have good abilities, good grades, and good family backgrounds. the concept they have accepted is that tsinghua and peking university are the most important. of course, they can do it, so in the end they will complete their life tasks step by step and complete the mission of class replication. this is also the main conclusion of my research. the shackles of the entire society are pressing on them, and eventually they will contribute themselves to these shackles and become part of them.

of course, there are a few students who can break this idea and decide to do what they like, such as environmental protection or making documentaries, or studying climate change, doing what they love, and making the world a better place, but these are really a minority, and these people are usually labeled by the people around them as daring to think and do, and dare to be themselves, which means that this is not a mainstream choice, and it is even a rebellious choice. for the vast majority of "study gods", they will eventually follow the social trend, get on the established track, and meet the expectations of the people around them. there are very few exceptions.

m: for these elite students, what role does the adult world constructed by parents, teachers, and schools play in the process of moving forward on a set track?

J：for the best among the elite students, a very simple logic is that if they can easily do their best in the path ahead, they are "gods". parents will be satisfied, and the performance of teachers is directly linked to the performance of students. the grades of these children will further polish the school's business card. we can see that in this system, "diversity of choice" does not exist. the adult world plays this role. in the lives of these children, the concept of "what kind of person i want to be" is vague, and all adults keep telling them, "what kind of person you should be" and "what kind of person you can be".

m: so the process of elite replication is also the process of diversity disappearing?

J：essentially, the adult world and our entire society do not provide these children with a variety of choices. they are left with only one narrow road. but on the other hand, this narrow road is difficult for children from ordinary families to reach. this is how the elite class completes its own replication and circulation.

▲ photo/ movie "hot girl"

in our educational practice, ordinary people have long enjoyed the creation of gods. few people realize that this inertia and cognition of each of us is exacerbating the stratification of the entire society.

m: what changes has this research brought to you personally?

J：when i first started working on this topic, i was only 26 years old. i was completely unfamiliar with life in mainland china. after arriving in beijing, i bought my first smartphone and used wechat for the first time. at that time, i felt that beijing was too big, making me feel small and lonely. i remember that after getting the phone, i entered my name into it, so that at least i would have a contact in my address book.

that was also my first time in beijing. these kids were my only friends in mainland china, and our friendship continues to this day. this is why i often feel conflicted after i started my analysis and research.

but this is also the charm of sociology. from these children, i not only gained friendship, but more importantly, a way to look at the real world. as a researcher in educational sociology, my observations and records have strengthened my criticism of the elite class. on the other hand, i have also learned to look at the same thing from different perspectives, rather than from my original middle-class perspective or from a macro-framework to roughly view them as annoying people from wealthy families, or a group of guys who carry the original sin of the elite. this will only intensify conflicts and will not help us understand the real society.

glimpse into their life process, i hope that all of us can think further: what are the causes of these shackles, or what is the formation mechanism. we all hope that society can be as fair and equal as possible, but rarely reflect on the role of each of us in it. are we willing to walk out of the maze of single values ​​and want our children to have more possibilities?

m: you mentioned in your book that for those children who are not so good at learning, they actually consciously cooperate with the game of "worshipping the god of learning". the inferiors cannot break the rules in front of them, so they are more devoted to the rules?

J：this problem is not just among students. in our educational practice, ordinary people have long enjoyed creating gods and enjoying this kind of clamor. if an ordinary student's school produces a number of students who are admitted to tsinghua university or peking university, he will also be proud of it. it seems that only by creating one god after another can we forgive our own mediocrity. we create a god, then look up to him and worship him. looking at the entire east asian society, we seem to have this inertia. everyone likes to read these stories to give themselves a temporary pleasure. there are exams every year, and there is pleasure every year.

but few people seem to realize that this inertia and cognition of each of us is rationalizing the stratification of the entire society. we are restricted by this social stratification, but it seems that we are particularly active in maintaining this restriction. this is a very paradoxical relationship.

▲"student god: china's young elites heading for global competition", written by jiang yilin. photo/ provided by the interviewee

m: speaking of elite education, including in western society, it has been like this for hundreds of years. elite education is the result of social differentiation, and in turn it will further aggravate social differentiation, a bit like a möbius strip. what do you think is the prospect of the training mechanism represented by elite education in beijing? will it continue? is there any possibility of change?

J：regarding elite education and the social problems it reflects, there is a general pessimism among educational sociologists at home and abroad. in a stable society, the possibility of breaking the möbius strip is very small. including what we just discussed, the entire society is even involved in building and strengthening this möbius strip.

this is why we have been calling for educational equity from the perspective of system design. we can only place our hopes on system-level design, and then we, the adults in the world, need to shoulder more responsibilities and make a little effort to change this status quo.

m: with the reduction of employment opportunities, will ordinary people’s belief that education can change their destiny also be shaken?

J：vertically speaking, with the decline of the overall economic development, the probability of ordinary people changing their fate through education has gradually decreased. we have the opportunity to see the production mechanism of the elites and are familiar with its operating rules. we can also identify the inequality behind it, but as a system that exists and operates skillfully, most people are powerless in front of it.

as a researcher in the sociology of education, i still hope that our entire society can face and confront these problems. from the perspective of institutional design, i think there is still a lot of room for optimization and promotion of fairness. the reality is that opportunities often flow to those who have no shortage of opportunities.

i think these problems are problems for the whole society. it is meaningless to blame students whose minds are not yet fully mature. the principle of our social research is not to blame individuals too much. it is not anyone's fault that they were born in such a good family. what we need to do is to face the long-standing shackles in the education system and explore the crux of the problem.

m: what are the possible directions?

J：we say that the loosening of the entire social atmosphere and the entire environment cannot be achieved by a single individual's cognition. it must be the joint efforts of the whole society, cultural reserves, cognitive changes, and optimization of institutional design. it cannot be a single one. change is certainly not overnight. everyone does what they want to do, everyone does what they like, all of which sound very good, but it is almost impossible to achieve such a change in a short period of time. because society must always operate, business and economy must develop, and promoting educational equity is not a matter of overnight.

but one thing is certain, each of us is a participant in society. if we know the mechanism of creating gods, then we can to some extent demystify "god" and abandon the obsession with talents and abilities. the whole society can break the single evaluation system and embrace more diverse values ​​and possibilities.

▲ jiang yilin. photo/ provided by the interviewee

(the article is original by daily people, any infringement will be investigated)