Rebels Against What? Understanding '98Five' and Their Identity Construction in the Chinese Context of World-Class University Movement

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This research will investigate a group of Chinese higher education students who identify themselves as'98five(s)' - trash or losers at elite 'Project 985' universities. The term '98five' generally refers to first generationcollege students from under-developed areas who experienced an identity shift fromsuccessful learners to 'losers'. They established an online discussion group where they can share theirexperiences as '985 losers' to emotionally support each other. This research seeks to explore the identityconstruction of 98fives and how their identities influence their 'choice' of being resistant to the dominantdiscourses of 'meritocracy' and 'self as human capital' in contemporary Chinese society. Digitalethnography will be used to study 98fives' online engagement and interaction. This research will gobeyond (a) the rural-urban division to incorporate the disadvantaged urban young people, and (b)Bourdieu's cultural-reproductive model to highlight how the Party-State's interventionist policies serve toshape the reproductive functions of higher education. This research will demonstrate that the Party-Statehas endeavoured to create the policy discourse of 'high-level talents with Chinese features', in whichgenerating (STEM) human capital and patriotic socialist citizens through 'world-class' higher educationare main concerns. This discourse has been working with the traditional discourse of Confucianmeritocracy to marginalise human agency, particularly those from disadvantaged socio-economicbackgrounds who aspire for social mobility through participation in elite higher education. Therefore, thisresearch will present a challenge for educational policy makers to move beyond instrumental discoursesand develop more humanistic discourses in which young people' agency freedom can be augmented.