Doctoral Dissertation Research: Structural Constraints to Economic Mobility Among Highly Educated Youth

博士论文研究：受过高等教育的青年经济流动性的结构性限制

• 批准号: 1558732
• 负责人: Jennifer Cole
• 金额: $ 0.55万
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-03-15 至 2017-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1558732&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Structural; Constraints

Contemporary youth are confronted with a paradox in their aspirations for upward mobility: higher education is increasingly becoming an economically necessary investment, while it is becoming less subsidized and more difficult to capitalize on in the short term. The establishment and maintenance of a stable middle class has long been regarded as essential to the health of the economy, and the viable pursuit of upward mobility is a key measure of confidence for that system. This project, which trains a graduate student in conducting rigorous, empirically grounded scientific fieldwork, asks how educated youth are able to maintain aspirations for upward mobility in the face of significant structural challenges. The findings will be useful to policymakers, planners, and practitioners interested in sustainable economic development. Robert Miles Loomis, under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Cole at the University of Chicago, examines how members of a growing underclass of educated but irregularly employed rural graduates living on the margins of major metropolises negotiate the tension between aspirations for upward mobility and present realities of poverty and precarious employment. The research specifically such one such group in China (yi zu; or "ant tribe"), an ideal site for exploring this question as it has seen a rapidly developing middle class since initiating its policies for "reform and opening" (gaige kaifang) in the late-1970s. Much of the population now sees education as only way out of poverty. Rural parents, especially, often spend all of their savings to ensure that their children attend college and land jobs in urban areas. The turn to education as a means of social mobility was itself encouraged by the government's decision in 1999 to radically expand the university system, making higher education more accessible through marketization. Yet despite the greater availability of tuition-based degrees, the Chinese economy has not generated enough white-collar jobs to absorb this massive influx of graduates. Yet members of this group, as educated youth, remain hopeful about their ability to enter into China's "high quality" workforce. By providing an in depth ethnographic look at this growing population, this project will explore how marginalized rural youth make sense of and act upon the terms of their social participation in contemporary urban China, and the ways they may be reproducing or challenging the nature of value and social hierarchy as they do so. Methods include participant observation and interviews at four different sites in and around Beijing.

当代青年在追求向上流动的愿望中面临着一种矛盾：高等教育日益成为经济上必要的投资，而对高等教育的补贴却越来越少，更难以在短期内加以利用。长期以来，建立和维持稳定的中产阶级一直被认为是经济健康发展的关键，而对向上流动的可行追求是对这一体系信心的关键衡量标准。该项目培训一名研究生进行严格的、基于经验的科学实地考察，探讨受过教育的青年如何在面临重大结构性挑战时保持向上流动的愿望。研究结果将有助于对可持续经济发展感兴趣的政策制定者、规划者和从业人员。 罗伯特·迈尔斯卢米斯在芝加哥大学的詹妮弗·科尔博士的指导下，研究了生活在大都市边缘的受过教育但就业不稳定的农村毕业生中日益增长的下层阶级成员如何在向上流动的愿望与目前贫困和不稳定就业的现实之间进行谈判。这项研究专门针对中国的一个这样的群体（彝族;或“蚁族”），这是探索这个问题的理想场所，因为自20世纪70年代末开始实施“改革开放”（改革开放）政策以来，中国中产阶级迅速发展。许多人现在认为教育是摆脱贫困的唯一途径。尤其是农村的父母，他们经常花光所有的积蓄，以确保他们的孩子在城市地区上大学和找到工作。1999年，政府决定从根本上扩大大学体系，通过市场化使高等教育更容易获得，这本身就鼓励了教育作为社会流动的一种手段。然而，尽管学费型学位的供应量更大，但中国经济并没有创造出足够的白领工作来吸收大量涌入的毕业生。然而，作为受过教育的年轻人，这一群体的成员仍然对他们进入中国“高素质”劳动力队伍的能力抱有希望。通过对这一不断增长的人口进行深入的民族志研究，该项目将探讨边缘化的农村青年如何理解他们在当代中国城市的社会参与条件并采取行动，以及他们在这样做时可能复制或挑战价值观和社会等级的方式。研究方法包括在北京及周边地区的四个不同地点的参与观察和访谈。