Working-class youth culture in vocational schools : an exploration of solidarity

Abstract

In recent years, vocational education in mainland China has experienced rapid expansion due to the active promotion of the state, and the number of students in vocational schools has exceeded 27 million in 2018. This thesis focuses on the students of vocational schools, the majority of whom are working-class youths, aiming to shed light on the subjectivity of working-class youths from a cultural perspective. The narratives of consumerism and neoliberal individualization in postmodern society often prescribe the working-class a passive role. Resistance to the existing culture or class solidarity could hardly be seen. Working-class subjectivity is often said to be deconstructed. This research aims to challenge these negative views by examining the dialectical relationship between mainstream culture and subculture of which the vocational students are the bearers of the lived processes. Based on my three-month ethnographic study of a vocational college in Gansu Province, and a large-scale survey in 12 vocational schools conducted by my supervisor’s research team, this thesis reveals that for working-class youths in vocational schools, there is no clear distinction between mainstream culture and subculture that we can locate in their lived experiences. Instead, a flexible strategy has been developed—they agree with certain values from the mainstream culture, but are not restricted to them. In their resistance against the stigma from the society, students are disillusioned with the reality of vocational education on the one hand, and realize their common needs and create a culture of solidarity in daily practice on the other. This thesis interprets working-class youth solidarity from the aspects of material sharing, emotional support and crisis response, during which they reintegrate resources that are available to them, and switch between the value of mainstream culture and subculture. This is the core of working-class youth culture, which helps them resists the logic of individualization and homogenization in contemporary Chinese society.