Middle-class Students Studying in a Community College in Hong Kong: A Mismatch between High-status Habitus and Low-status Field?

Abstract

This article is about twelve middle-class students, previously studying in elite primary and secondary schools, making another attempt at getting into university in Hong Kong. Despite their failure at a critical educational stage, which contradicts a general pattern of middle-class educational success, they decide to seek a second chance by reading an associate degree in community college, a perceived inferior educational option. Despite feeling determined, they are anxious and uneasy with taking up this option. How the middle class feel about their academic pursuits, especially after a critical failure, is under-researched. This article attempts to fill this gap by referring to Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and field to make sense of the complex or contradictory feelings of 12 students with a self-conscious, high-status, middle-class habitus in encountering a perceived low-status community college. I shall conclude this article with the normative implication of our discussion in making sense of educational inequality.