1

Pre-publication version Recommended citation: Oleksiyenko, A. (2015). Social Mobility and Stakeholder Leverages: Disadvantaged Students and “Important Others” in the “Glonacal” Construct of Higher Learning. Education and Society, 33 (1): 29-50

Social Mobility and Stakeholder Leverages: Disadvantaged Students and “Important Others” in

the “Glonacal” Construct of Higher Learning

Anatoly Oleksiyenko

University of Hong Kong

Abstract Disadvantaged students increasingly confront ruthless competition for higher education degrees, while losing out on opportunities for social mobility. Some of Hong Kong’s low-income households defy the trend: families take on risk, including considerable debt, to send their offspring abroad, rather than test their chances at home by dealing with competitive learning silos, stratified schooling, social status anxiety, and failing employer support. Drawing on stakeholder theory, “glonacal agency” heuristic and the existentialist perspective, this paper examines how some low-income families break the cycle of disadvantage by tapping into the powers, legitimacy and urgency of “important others,” allowing them to harness local and global resources to achieve social mobility. Key words: higher education, students, family project, mobility, status anxiety, stakeholder theory “glonacal” agency

Introduction Low-income, poverty, disease, special needs and other disadvantageous conditions can easily cut off students from access to higher learning and diminish their opportunities for social mobility. Socially and economically disadvantaged households in Hong Kong are understandably prone to anxiety, while offspring in these households have to compete in educational systems that enforce sorting by school affiliations, test scores, tutorial enhancement and socio-economic status (Perna, 2006; Rowan-Kenyon, Perna & Swan, 2011). In cases when the government encourages, rather than relieves competitive pressures, disadvantaged students confront limited and humbling options: e.g., to lower expectations, to drop out, or to commit to long-term private education debts. Some disadvantaged households also take on considerable risks by investing all their savings or taking loans to send their offspring for studies abroad in the expectation of purchasing more competitive credentials and skills for their children, and thus allowing them to rise in the professional hierarchies upon returning home (Waters, 2006; Oleksiyenko, 2013). In

2

economic terms, however, the disadvantaged students run a relatively high risk of getting a low return on their investment, as higher education participation, oversupply of university credentials, and competition for high-income jobs are all simultaneously increasing locally and globally.

To break the cycle of disadvantage, low-income households are encouraged to build a more competition-focused, and thus tenuous, social position. Improving status requires competing for scarce resources with equally disadvantaged neighbors, as well as with powerful and privileged counterparts. However, low-income households often lack sufficient knowledge to effectively manage their scarce resources. While governments try to mitigate competitive tensions by offering differentiated access, the emerging system increases inequality: community colleges accommodate lower-income students in the bottom tiers of higher education, while prestigious world-class universities reproduce privileges for high-income families. Highly selective exams and steep fees create social walls that segregate populations. Disadvantaged students can rarely obtain access to prestigious and expensive university programs at home or abroad, without accumulating competitive powers through high exam scores, investments funds, and family support in sorting or combining local and global options (Brooks & Waters 2011; Oleksiyenko 2013). While being promised equal degrees of legitimacy in access to higher education (e.g., in governmental regulations or universal declarations of international agencies, such as UNESCO), the underprivileged and the privileged have starkly unequal opportunities. While access challenges are widely discussed in various higher education systems, the literature has scantly covered the salience of stakeholder powers, legitimacies and exigencies in mitigating such challenges in the globalizing educational contexts. This paper approaches the subject from the perspective of a disadvantaged “family project” in Hong Kong. Disadvantaged families in the world city are viewed as confronting extra risks at the time of globalization, and hence have to rely on powerful political, social and economic players at local, national and global levels simultaneously, to enhance their chances for social mobility. The following sections examine how these forces conflate and come into tension, when some stakeholders withdraw their support. A Disadvantaged Family Project and Disintegrating Stakeholder Commitments

Socially structured, higher education often evolves as an enabler or paralyzer of opportunities for households aspiring to improve their socio-economic status. For low SES families, the social mobility can be an uphill battle with disadvantages that accumulate over time. Low-income students fail to compete with their well-off peers when higher education institutions prioritize applicants’ educational attainment, prestige of credentials, access to tutorial support, and/or parental positions in professional and socio-economic hierarchies (Perrons, 2004; McWilliam, 2008; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010; Oleksiyenko, 2013). Justifiably or not, university-driven meritocracy appears to override social justice in contexts where public budgets fail to provide continuous support for all, while individual investment capacities become key differentiators in education, job and income attainment (Marginson, 2004; Perna, 2006).

In an attempt to find a balance between meritocracy and equity, some governments and universities choose mass higher education, and thus create an illusion of wider access. At the same time, few of them explain that the massification leads to over-production of university credentials, enhanced competition for well-paid jobs as well as higher rates of graduate employment failures. Students from the lower

3

socio-economic levels confront a higher degree of challenge when universities try to cater to those stakeholders that have the highest salience of power, legitimacy and urgency (Jongbloed, Enders & Salerno, 2008).

Disadvantaged students are often those who have little power in terms of immediate resources and savings that can secure their improved futures or create cushions at the time of employment failures of layoffs. Even when they succeed with employment, the extent to which these students can exert power, legitimacy or urgency may depend on how far they have advanced in their educational attainment and what happened to their value systems, residential affiliations, family responsibilities and employment conditions along the way (Greene & Saridakis, 2008). Students, as much as their parents, are under pressure to be strategic about their investments in education, given conditions that include mounting tuition fees, tightening household incomes and growing competition for access to employment-securing education (Kelly & Ewell, 2009; Li, 2009).

The legacies, infrastructures and aspirations of local political and economic agencies can have considerable influence on whether households can create social elevators for their offspring. The choice of empowerment over containment often depends on a family’s capacity and desire to enable a shift from sedentary to mobile lifestyles, to take financial risks, as well as change geopolitical, institutional and cultural affiliations. Choices in favor of mobility seem to increase in contexts where economic structures have moved away from heavy industry to service and knowledge infrastructures, and labor markets do not guarantee sustainable jobs and predictable pension plans (Li & Zhang, 2010). As jobs become more fluid, households loosen commitments to home-places, communities, and social institutions, including educational ones. Student empowerment used to be in the hands of their parents, close relatives, school teachers, peers, as well as governmental and industrial stakeholders. The roles of these various “important others” have been changing in the view of increased competition and loosening commitments to any particular layer in multi-leveled multi-stakeholder frameworks. Local, national and global priorities collide, as human and institutional agencies tend to conceptualize and implement their agendas in asynchronous ways (Marginson & Rhoades, 2002). For example, universities can train students for globally-accredited high-tech skills, which may appear to be irrelevant for local industries that fail to modernize production processes. The opposite can also be true: some university programs train for outdated competencies that hardly serve the needs of the increasingly rapid cross-border flows of ideas and innovations. Urged to downgrade or upgrade their competencies, graduates seek additional certificate and degree programs, change professions or move to other locales. In ideal situations, governments step in to moderate asymmetries in demand-supply of competencies by offering differential training schemes in accordance with institutional and jurisdictional capacity to accommodate the mobility of local and global skill sets (Mok, 2008). In search of better positions, disadvantaged youth may have more opportunities to improve their socio-economic status, lifestyle and residence if governments subsidize specialized training, relocation schemes, tax relief, housing, etc. (Kell & Vogl, 2012).

The mobility projects of disadvantaged students may halt if the “important other” stakeholders don’t buy into social responsibility. If the previous generations relied on their personal powers or on their own family to get out of the social “nothingness,” the important others may question the shift of responsibility for improving the lot of individuals onto the taxpayer. Social responsibility emerges as a

4

critical modality in linking human and institutional agencies to create support for disadvantaged families. However, as the number of “family projects” grows, competition for access to higher education and jobs increases, and the previously advantaged lose the guarantee that their privilege will remain intact. In such circumstances, the advocacy and support for social responsibility tend to wane. In Sartrean terms, the “important other” plays a crucial role in responding to the needs of the disadvantaged, supporting their aspiration to become a part of a better “totality”, which is shaped by class consciousness or ownership of experiences acquired through social, linguistic, cognitive, or cooperative experiences. Young people realize the idea of a move from one totality to another by calibrating educational schemes, peer networks, institutional or residential affiliations. However, as globalization widens access to higher education through cross-border mobility and high-tech connectivity, disadvantaged students may seek opportunities to join a new totality without playing the role of social elevator for the whole family. Globalization shuffles student affiliations, changes family member commitments, and erodes communal scaffolds, which were once regarded as important, sustainable and predictable within the place-bounded frameworks (Urry, 2007). In the age of mobility, students can be wedged into unemployment and disadvantage if they subscribe to those place-bounded frames that preclude effective engagement and support of their parents, peers, and employers.

The Study The tensions emerging for disadvantaged households and their offspring are brought into focus by looking at the cases of Hong Kong families. The city of Hong Kong represents a highly dynamic environment, with one of the world’s highest trade turnovers and highest GDP per capita (USD$42,000 as of 2013). Hong Kong’s residents enjoy access to an excellent education system, which integrates both Chinese and British traditions of curriculum development, offering selective education for sorting human capital. In 2012/2013, education in Hong Kong was provided by 994 kindergartens, 626 primary schools, 635 secondary schools, and 30 post-secondary institutions, including 21 community colleges and 8 UGC-funded universities (see Table 1). The number of primary and secondary schools declined over the last five years in view of demographic changes caused in part by a decreasing birth-rate. Local Hong Kong schools compete with 41 international primary schools and 29 international secondary schools (HKCSD, 2013), most of which tend to have long waiting lists, despite charging high tuition fees.

5

Table 1. Hong Kong’s Educational Institutions

School/Academic year Level of

education 2007/08 2011/12 2012/13

Institutions Students (‘000)

Institutions Students (‘000)

Institutions Students (‘000)

Kindergarten 986 138.4 980 159.0 994 166.4

Primary 689 389.9 625 326.2 626 320.7

Secondary 673 513.8 658 486.9 635 439.1

Post-Secondary

22 276.6 26 296.7 30 332.5

of which degree-

awarding institutions

12 15 17

Source: Education Bureau 2013. Note: “(1) Educational and training institutions offering courses at multiple levels of education are counted at the corresponding levels of education. Figures do not include schools offering adult education/tutorial/vocational courses below post-secondary education level. (2) Figures include kindergarten-cum-child care centres. Figures from 2008/09 onwards also include special child care centres registered under the Social Welfare Department. (3)Figures include special schools. (4) Apart from day schools and special schools, figures also include evening schools and institutions offering craft level courses and programmes of the Project Yi Jin/Yi Jin Diploma. (5) Figures refer to institutions providing locally-accredited full-time post-secondary programmes. (6) Figure of 2012/13 includes Centennial College and Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong which started to offer degree programmes from the 2012/13 academic year. # Provisional figures.”

Hong Kong’s government subsidizes undergraduate studies for only 20,000

students (approximately 20% of the eligible youth). In 2000, the government provided significant land grants and loans to transform its TVET sector into a community college system. By 2006, community colleges accommodated an extra 42% of the eligible student population seeking to pursue Higher Diploma and Associate Degree programs. The students from low-income families would usually begin from associate degrees in the expectation that they would articulate the credentials to a bachelor degree program at one of the local universities in the long run. Limited access to prestigious domestic universities was reported as a factor driving many high-performing local students to study abroad. Some of them were motivated by a desire to increase their competitiveness when searching for well-paid jobs upon returning home. On an annual basis, Hong Kong sent out over 30,000 students for studies abroad, primarily in English-speaking countries (UK, Australia, Canada and the US) over the last decade (Oleksiyenko, Cheng & Yip, 2011). This group also included low SES students: e.g., over 16,600 households with a monthly income below HKD20,000 (equivalent of USD$2,576), with a subset of 4,600 households with an income below HKD10,000, invested in studies abroad in 2011 (see Table 2). Over the last decade, opportunities for the category with income below HKD10,000 have declined.

6

Table 2. Hong Kong’s Households by Monthly Household Income ($HKD) and Investment Capacities to Educate Their Children Abroad

Households by Income Households by Education Abroad Investment Capacity

‘000 ‘000 2002 2011 2002 2011 <10,000 629.7 593.3 6.9 4.6 10,000-19,999 596.1 635.8 11.5 12.0 20,000-29,999 394.1 461.9 10.9 13.6 30,000-39,999 196.2 259.2 8.8 10.7 40,000-59,999 176.7 244.2 11.6 12.8 >60,000 131.5 130.0 11.2 12.2 TOTAL 2124.2 2324.4 60.9 66.0 Source: HK CSD 2002, 2011.

As the local youth population (15-19 year-olds) declined (see Table 3), schools, colleges and universities in Hong Kong began to recruit more students from mainland China and Southeast Asia. Concurrently, the discussion of Hong Kong’s capacities as a regional education hub intensified in policy and scholarly circles. While Hong Kong could claim a high number of global centers of excellence in both secondary and tertiary education, it was confronting graduate unemployment pressure, which was also escalating on the mainland and elsewhere in tandem with the expansion of mass higher education. Youth unemployment in particular remained relentlessly high in Hong Kong. Unemployment rates reached 23.6% for 15-24 year olds in 2011 (Table 4), even as the overall unemployment rate in the jurisdiction dropped to 3.6% in the same year.

Table 3. The proportion of youth in the total Hong Kong’s population (mid-year) 2002 2007 2011 2012 Total population 6,744,100 6,916,300 7,071,600 7,154,600

Youth population, 15-19 (‘000) 438,100 440,900 423,700 419,100 Youth population, 20-24 (‘000) 455,000 465,300 451,500 458,000 Youth population (%) 13.2 13.1 12.4 12.2 Sources: HKCSD 2013. Table 4. Youth (Un)Employment in Hong Kong (2010-2011) Employment Unemployment (‘000) % (000) % 2002 2010 2011 2002 2010 2011 2002 2010 2011 2002 2010 2011 Total Workforce

3,487 3,651 3,747 100 100 100 255.5 173.3 136.8 7.3 4.74 3.65

Youth (15-19)

75.0 37.6 40.3 2.15 1.02 1.07 22.9 7.7 7.5 8.96 4.44 5.4

Youth (20-24)

321.9 271.5 269.2 9.23 7.4 7.18 - 30.6 24.9 - 17.6 18.2

Total youth (15-24)

396.9 309.1 309.5 11.4 8.46 8.25 - 38.3 32.4 - 22.1 23.6

Source: HK CSD 2011. Note: Percentage in the employed category is calculated out of the total number of the employed. Percentage in the unemployed category is calculated out of the total workforce. The number of unemployed persons in the 15-24 age category is proportioned within the unemployed category.

Previous research pointed to the increasing gravitation of Hong Kong toward global economic networks, where the city occupies one of the top places in the

7

hierarchy of urban economies that control the flows and concentration of global finance and logistics. Steep educational degree and income hierarchies are shaped in the city by pressure to remain globally competitive, as well as by cultural attributes that position educational attainment as a key filter in social mobility. Previous research listed some reasons for the high level of outbound mobility (e.g., dissatisfaction with local education; desire to improve English; pursuit of more prestigious credentials), and identified dependencies between outbound and upward mobility. However, disadvantaged households’ power, legitimacy and urgency in engaging “important others” to mitigate mobility-related challenges remain underexplored. To help fill the gap, the findings below consider the key positions of significant stakeholders - e.g., government, industry, the educational sector, and civic organizations – with regards to helping disadvantaged students reduce risks and the marginality of their socio-economic status.

The related analysis draws on data from several Hong Kong case-studies that examined the phenomena of international student mobility and opportunity structures for higher learning (see, for example, Oleksiyenko, Cheng & Yip, 2013; Oleksiyenko, 2013). 12 interviews with students from low-income households complemented the earlier data-set comprising 45 interviews with government, education and professional stakeholders in Hong Kong. The study also included field-based participant observations; census and statistics data, household surveys, and reports on youth unemployment published by the HKSAR governmental bodies.

Findings

Major Hong Kong’s stakeholders, i.e., government and industry, used to be cautious about taking bold steps aimed at social restructuring, so as not to undermine the sustainability of the small and medium enterprises that have been the city’s economic engine, as well as not to discourage the expanding knowledge-based economy. Between 2002 and 2012, the number of workplaces dropped significantly in the manual labor sector, primarily at the expense of plant and machine operators and assemblers (from 237,100 to 181,500), as well as craft workers (from 288,200 to 247,500). Meanwhile, demand has grown in the service industry: including managerial positions (from 300,300 to 407,000), professional (196,000 to 206,000), associate professionals (573,100 to 713,500) and sales (468,600 to 605,800) (Table 5). Table 5. HK Employment by Occupations (2002-2012)

(‘000)

2002 2012 Managers and Administrators 300.3 407.0 Professionals 196.0 266.0 Associate Professionals 573.1 713.5 Clerks 535.7 505.8 Service Workers and Shop Sales Workers 468.6 605.8 Craft and Related Workers 288.2 247.5 Plant and machine operators and assemblers 237.1 181.5 Elementary occupations 610.6 729.2 Others 8.7 4.3 Total 3,218.4 3,660.7

Source: HKCSD 2013.

8

Interviewees often remarked that “disadvantaged youth often have limited access to colleges and universities and get low-skilled jobs in malls, restaurants, workshops”. With low levels of motivation for menial jobs, the youth fail to commit to their employers: the attrition rates in the above-mentioned areas have been quite high for 15-24 year olds: e.g., around 30% in the accommodation and food sector. As one local observer explains,

Lack of self-discipline, interpersonal skills and job-specific skills are the most crucial factors affecting why Hong Kong young people find it difficult to secure a permanent job in the market…The challenge is that they don’t know how to communicate with other colleagues in the workplace and they don’t know how to self-discipline themselves to learn the job-specific skills. Whenever they face any difficulties, they will just quit. Sometimes they will just quit after working for one or two days. By doing that repeatedly, they will not be able to acquire the required job-specific skills and their interpersonal skills won’t be developed. At the end, it will be just like a non-stop cycle of looking for jobs, [feeling frustrated] and quitting the jobs.

Such attitudes seem to have persisted for a number of years. In the aftermath

of the 1997-98 Asian financial and 2008 global financial crises, the government undertook some measures to build stronger commitments on the part of both employers and employees. For example, the Youth Pre-employment Training Program, and Youth Work Experience and Training Scheme were created to improve young people’s communication skills, discipline, team building and interpersonal skills, as well as to provide practical competencies, including in new industries such as information technologies. The government funded employers to arrange internships for 15-24 year-olds by providing monthly subsidies in the amount of HKD$2,000 during the training period. “Subject to 90% attendance or to a pass in examination, [the youth could also] reimburse course and examination fees up to $4,000 with the scheme” in part-time vocational training (YEI 2013). The students could then transfer from YPTP-YWETS to sub-degree programs. Thirty six “tailor-made employment projects” and “tailor-made training cum employment projects” “were run for employers in the retail, catering, tourism, education, business services, construction and engineering, transport, and property management industries” in 2009-2010 (Labour Department, 2010). Award Ceremonies for the Most Improved Trainees were introduced to encourage benchmarking among the program participants. The government also created a special 12-month on-the-job support and training program to assist those who had “acute employment difficulties due to low educational attainment, emotional/behavioural problems or learning difficulties” (ibid).

While low-income families celebrated the government’s efforts, industrial stakeholders were quite unhappy about the introduction of welfare measures into the traditionally competitive and entrepreneurial social fabric of the city. The number of self-employed was argued to grow much slower than the number of the employed (from 210,000 to 240,000, and from 2,804,200 to 3,286,900 respectively in each group over the last five years, according to the 2013 HKCSD report). As the city was increasingly integrated into the orbits of heavy governmental supervision practiced by Beijing, Hong Kong’s advocates of a hands-off government raised concerns about governmental intervention creating a more dependent youth (Goodstadt, 2013). While the divides between liberal and neo-liberal streams of argument appeared to grow, the

9

stakeholders tended to overgeneralize and marginalize structural conditions such as disability, terminal diseases, single-parent families, or orphanhood. Moreover, some structural challenges were the result of powerful constructs legitimized by the “important others”, and had nothing to do with choice-making of the disadvantaged families. The major attributes of these structural challenges are as follows. 1) Competitive silos in classrooms The Confucian tradition of meritocracy is upheld in Hong Kong through a rigorous system of tests. These tests play an important role in sorting achievers in the traditionally meritocratic bureaucracy, business and finance, and hard sciences, by requiring strong skills in memorization, attention to details, rationality and control. However, some local observers note that the exams can have a significant downside: i.e., while the tests reward hard work and excellent cognitive abilities, they also cultivate a culture of institutional compliance, as well as peer rivalry and aloofness. According to one study participant:

Students expect to learn from teachers, not from other students. They don’t care about what the others’ opinions are. Teachers’ words are the most important because those words can be “answers” in an examination. (That’s why Hong Kong students like to copy down every teacher's writing on the board). Therefore, students do not want to respond to the others since they feel that it is a waste of time. They want to hear more from the teachers. A small proportion of students do not want to share their thoughts, [for] it is like giving hints to the other students (competitors) on how to do well in the examinations. In the absence of peer-to-peer communication in classrooms, students with

slower or underdeveloped cognitive skills fail to learn from stronger students, develop confidence in communication or establish productive peer relations that are crucial for social inclusion and networking across social strata. The stronger students were also considered to have insufficient opportunities to develop empathy, tolerance and the capacity to support weaker counterparts. A parent of an autistic child reminisced that competition became a pervasive instrument in the best schools, and that the child who failed to contribute to the success of his/her team could be easily sidelined and ostracized by his/her peers. This approach to learning convinced the family to leave Hong Kong.

The isolation is further reinforced by a banding system that channels children’s path up the academic ladder. Some argue that the banding system provides a degree of fairness, given that “it curtails competition to students, who are equally positioned, and reduces pressure on those, who do not aspire for higher learning”. However, the banding system can become a trap, locking in students who are misjudged on their initial performance. A number of students argued that they were often affected by an inability to cope with test anxiety. Others also pointed to poor learning environments: e.g., Hong Kong’s “housing accommodations are notoriously small, and underprivileged families are often incapable of providing children with adequate space for quiet studies”. Moreover, the low SES student disadvantage is further solidified by competition among households: i.e., most well-heeled parents invest significant amounts of money in extra-curricular tutoring, thus surpassing low-income families in shaping the competitive advantages of their offspring.

While pressured by the market advocates to demonstrate skills for self-employment and autonomy, students often felt “uncomfortable embracing uncertainty,

10

as they feared that the risks would not be rewarded” and believed that it “would be safer to follow an elder’s/superior’s advice and expectations”. Marginalized students were all the more reluctant to adopt self-actualization and allow their voices to be heard.

2) Lower costs, lower quality Students from low-income households appear to have fewer chances to hone the skills that are favored by a globalizing knowledge economy (e.g., cross-cultural communication, interdisciplinary analysis, critical thinking). Such skill development was difficult to achieve in over-crowded and reticent classrooms that delivered mass education by engaging teachers that used traditional-style instruction methods aimed at nurturing the old cognitive frames intended to encourage followership, obedience and template solutions. To empower their offspring for opportunities in the new economies, parents opted for international schools, which were recruiting the best local and foreign talent, and shaping curricula that prepared students for access to top global universities, cross-border mobility and competitive positions in transnational markets. However, “the best international schools have long waiting lists and charge fee rates that low-income families are not able to [pay]”.

Low-income families would generally “have to settle for what was available for mass consumption at lower cost”. Some low-income households chose to take risks by taking out loans, launching small businesses for extra income, or swapping property assets (e.g., selling or renting out their apartments and living in cheaper accommodations in less desirable locations). This allowed them to make initial investments “in the English-speaking direct subsidy or even international schools in Hong Kong, and then make [their children] compete for scholarships in Canada or Australia”. Others ventured to “send their children to study abroad at the pre-college stage, so that these kids return and compete more successfully for a university place in Hong Kong afterwards”. However, as Table 2 illustrates, the number of such risk-takers has been low, and actually declined over the last decade, given that tuition fees were increasing in many universities abroad. 3) Fear of investments with low returns and high burdens Hong Kong households traditionally encouraged students to embark on higher education, rather than take on a low-level job as a starting point to building a career. Investments in higher education were in line with the Confucian heritage, which links improvement in status to educational attainment. However, parents were not indiscriminate in their endorsement of education, displaying caution with regards to low-quality college choices. For low-income households, investing in children’s education often meant taking on large debts and grueling commitments. As one reviewer noted:

There is no doubt that not all households can afford for their children to go for higher education study. Yet, the government “promises” to assist these students in different ways [with the help of] student grant[s] or Non-mean Test Loan[s]. These measures create financial problems…to both students and households. The course fees of sub-degree programme, as well as self-financing degree or top-up degree programme are very expensive. For example, the tuition fee of a 2-year associate degree programme is more than HKD$40,000 per year. Given that a student can continue for a 2-year top-up degree programme, the tuition fee is also

11

more than HKD$40,000 per year. Suppose the student lend[s] from the government…HKD$40,000 each year, the principal in the entire 4-year higher education is HKD$160,000. [Assuming] that the interest rate is fixed and the interest rate of Government Non-mean Test Loan is around 4% per annum with 10 years interval, [the] student has to repay nearly $6,000 per quarter in the coming 10 years. However, the average wage rate of a fresh graduate is around HKD$10,0001 per month, sometimes even a little bit lower. It definitely is a heavy burden to the students and the households.

Disconcerted by debt fears, parents encourage their children to apply to market-

hot programs that promise greater opportunities for higher income in the future. One student recounts a typical family discussion:

Maybe if you studied business then clearly you would be working in a business firm but those who study Arts are always criticized to be jobless or really hard to find a job… Even when I chose Chinese my mother also said “what will you do with a Chinese degree?” And now my brother also chose Chinese to study… my mother also asked me to convince my brother not to study Chinese, she’s worried that he won’t find a job right after graduation; this maybe restricting him. The HKCSD (2013) report suggests that salaries were indeed significantly higher

in finance, insurance and professional services positions. At the same time, there was clearly a problem with congestion that undermined the reasoning behind investment decisions in those disciplines. As one local observer argued: “most of the students choose business subjects, as they think that working in these industries can make more money”. Over time, however, as “the business world [is] saturated,…the graduates from this field realize that it is more difficult to find jobs. Worse still, there is a downward pressure on the average wage rate in this sector due to excess supply of labour. As a result, more and more graduates are unemployed. They are unable to repay the government loan and the government may have to increase the provision for bad debt for the student loan.”

Hong Kong surveys on loan defaults indicated that a growing number of households found it difficult to manage the financial burden associated with higher education (HKCSD, 2008). While some local policymakers hailed growth in higher education access, sub-degrees became increasingly recognized as presenting a higher risk. They were viewed as providing a good investment option only for those households that could shoulder the additional risk of having to pay more money for follow-up degrees.

4) Status anxiety and branding concerns Having a chance to choose between a community college program at home and a study abroad, low-income students often argued in favour of qualifications from Australia, Canada, the UK or the US. In Hong Kong, “some basic service providers place their international diplomas, memberships, and audit reports on the wall to highlight their distinctiveness in the market”, explained one observer. Those staying at home also felt that they were in a better position for career growth, if they secured a place at a college program which was affiliated with a higher ranked local university or could offer an international top-up program.

1 Hong Kong has a fixed rate of HKD$7.8=USD$1.

12

These choices were often influenced by employers, who tended to give high scores to globally-ranked universities (see for example, 2012 and 2013 Hong Kong-related ranking scores in the QS Best Student Cities). Low-income students thus felt that they were inadequately qualified to approach employers, if their curriculum vitae did not reference reputable brands. With English proficiency being a major differentiator of students’ social belonging and status, local students had more chances for success if they could access schools and programs with English medium of instruction (EMI).

With limited carrying capacity for undergraduate programs, top-ranking local universities have tended to prioritize top performance over affirmative action, and promoted messages emphasizing the principles of meritocracy. Examination scores have been the widely-accepted foundation for what is considered fair decision-making. While some local universities increased fundraising campaigns to create scholarships and facilitate access for disadvantaged students, the selection criteria most often prioritized academic merit over equity demands An admissions officer argued that her university “[did] look into opportunities to provide scholarships to some best-performing students from disadvantaged social groups; but [it has] scarce resources and so can support very few”. Moreover, the higher the rank of the university, the more likely it is that it will not able to “go against [the institutional] nature [and] downplay the priority of academic excellence”. 5) Lacking corporate social responsibility Industrial stakeholders have rarely provided direct support to disadvantaged categories of youth in Hong Kong. While large corporations became involved in job fairs and employment matching schemes promoted by government-supported job centers, or donated some office hours to charitable work in communities, most businesses tended to assume a passive role in mitigating youth unemployment. In most publicly accessible profiles, the companies’ social responsibility plans did not include affirmative plans concerning disability, low SES, migratory or any other disadvantages. Counteracting job loss was perceived by most stakeholders as being the responsibility of governmental or social institutions, if not simply of the affected individuals. According to HKCSD (2013), small family-based enterprises (up to 19 people) represented 95% of Hong Kong’s business institutions, but they employed only 37% of the total workforce, which meant that the big corporations, which are fewer in number, employed almost two thirds of the workforce.

The government has regulated the employment of 15-18-year-olds, restricting excessive work schedules (i.e., youth were allowed to work for a maximum of 8 hours per day, between 7am and 7pm, not exceeding 48 hours weekly) (LD 2012). While welcomed by some, others felt that the regulation of teenage labor and the prohibition of “overtime employment, night work and working on rest days and statutory holidays” was limiting opportunities for career advancement in the corporate world, where employees were expected to overtly demonstrate their loyalty, commitment and capacity for hard work. At the same time, the regulations could also disrupt youth employment for less structured SMEs.

To optimize their retention or promotion opportunities in the globalizing labor markets, students had to improve their transversal competencies: e.g., learning-to-learn, digital literacy, citizenship, communication skills, judgment, character and soft/life skills. This called for getting out of their work niches, mixing with others in a higher learning environment, acquiring experiences through internships, voluntary

13

projects, part-time jobs, etc. Meanwhile, some observers pointed out that low-income students were more likely to take on menial jobs that left them with no energy for learning after work. Others noted that part-time learning became less effective as soon as longer working hours encroached on the schedules of students that reached the age of 19. At the same time, it became more difficult to find a part-time job. According to one student:

Even summer jobs or short-term jobs are not common in Hong Kong. Employers do not want to hire low qualified youth. Thus, it is not easy for the lowly educated youth to gain experience. In the past (20 years ago), youth could start their career as apprentices of many kinds, such as, mechanics, construction workers, cooks, etc. But, the number of these occupations has diminished because of the shrinking of the local manufacturing industry and the competition with the new immigrants in Hong Kong. As a result, youth with low education level is in a plight today.

6) Outdated guidance Disadvantaged students were often pressured by their parents to make education choices that seemed sensible to their parents, who tended to observe trends in extended families or neighborhood networks. Parental guidance tended not to take into account the particular talents or interests of their offspring. Parents were guided by buzzwords in their networks, and often had limited understanding of technological changes affecting job markets. Disadvantaged students had even fewer opportunities to take the risk of following their interests, as they had to take into account their parents’ aspirations for social elevation. Moreover, parents often felt responsible for making decisions for their children, while expecting them to express filial piety and respect “parental decisions as sacred”. Many students expressed concern about overblown expectations, when parents “nurtured guilt traps” that left students afraid of failing “to meet the parents’ hopes”. Some reports indicate that the “losers,” i.e., those failing to meet parental expectations, frequently resort to destructive behaviours like drug abuse or suicide (see, C.H. Cheng, 2001; Yip, Liu, Lam, Stewart, Chen & Fan 2004; School Safety Partners, 2010).

At the same time, children who have had the opportunity to travel overseas seemed to have more chances to develop independence. Increasingly, however, technology allows the students studying abroad to connect with their parents through the internet and portable devices. Some observers argue that, while parents adapted to new instant messaging technologies, they often failed to leave behind top-down pedagogical styles. “For parents, children remain children all their lives and they treat them like children”, explained one observer. Criticism, and hence critical thinking, had been discouraged in traditionally hierarchical and patriarchal settings, and thus became, as one participant in the study remarked, “a fatal reason why a lot of Hong Kong youth find it difficult to secure a job in the employment market. Lack of critical analysis and independent judgment skill-sets [means that] nobody can really help them and the high youth unemployment rates will maintain”.

When considering the challenge of cultivating a stronger culture of lateral communication, some study participants pointed out that older generations discouraged playfulness, creativity and leisurely activities in early childhood. These were deemed inappropriate in an environment in which children were expected to work hard in preparation for competitive examinations. As one reviewer remarked,

14

the Three Character Classic had been used for generations to instill the belief that “diligence has its reward, play has no advantages”. For well-to-do families, domestic workers (or “helpers,” as they are known in Hong Kong) played a significant role in child rearing, while young parents worked long hours. Helpers relieved children from domestic chores in later years of study, when curriculum-related homework increased. In the absence of domestic help, children from low-income families felt disadvantaged in comparison with their well-off peers. As one university student from a disadvantaged environment argued, it was more difficult for her to succeed in the highly competitive exam-oriented environment when she had to take care of younger siblings, perform household chores, and prepare for recurring tests all at the same time.

Several personal stories shared by study participants indicated that household responsibilities began to be assigned at an early age in disadvantaged families and took up additional time from year to year, often extending into the professional lives of such students. Professional counselors in YPTP-YWETS programs noted that they had to wage an uphill battle to reduce resentment and high rates of depression among youngsters from low-income families, who tended to develop a revulsion to repetitive, uncreative, low-rank job routines. Meanwhile, those whose families had the opportunity to employ domestic help, expressed concern that a tradition of leaving low-status menial labor to domestic helpers had the effect of creating among young people false expectations with regards to job hierarchies and social stratification.

Discussion and Concluding Remarks

In ideal terms, Hong Kong’s disadvantaged students acquire legitimacy for social mobility, if they have powerful predispositions for academic success and engage legitimate instruments, such as locally or globally-recognized tests, to succeed in competitive admissions. Once they are able to demonstrate cognitive excellence, all other benefits - funding, social and professional networks - are likely to follow and provide them with even more opportunities for social mobility. This is the framework that the neo-liberals tended to advocate in Hong Kong for years.

In reality, while many disadvantaged students may be motivated to act rapidly to leave behind their marginal position, few of them hold the power that would make their needs and interests dear to the agendas of “important others”. In Hong Kong, the “important others” have to take care of their offspring while tuition fees at prestigious schools get higher, examination systems are increasingly strained by tutorial schemes, and household privileges are increasingly challenged by competitive newcomers. Moreover, the disadvantaged students in Hong Kong tend to keep their aspirations for empowerment tacit, especially when the culture urges the young and the marginalized to be humble and earn rewards through hard work, rather than by exhibiting a bold voice and strong character. In a system that reproduces advantage through stratified education, stakeholders tend to treat rigorous examination as an important filter for social advancement (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). “The School”, in Bourdieuian terms, is expected to protect the social and economic hierarchy from “the compromises and corruptions of unscrupulous politicians and businessmen” (ibid, p. 148). At the same time, “the School” can be ignorant about poverty and have insufficient learning mechanisms to help students overcome their disadvantage (Goodstadt, 2013).

Disadvantaged households are increasingly concerned about their investments in higher education, as competition for access to prestigious university programs grows in parallel with tuition fees, living and transportation costs. Strains emerge not

15

only in the current family budgets, but also in long-term student family commitments and expectations related to future contributions. In the words of one of the research participants,

if you’re from a low income family, obviously the family will struggle as well as the student because as you know Chinese: you come out and work, you have to pay your family a certain amount of money, and after you’ve paid your family, you have to pay your school fee and debts, so what do you have left?

I just wouldn’t have as much time for everything because there’s a family burden behind me that I have to take care of, that I have to look after. To secure the sustainability of their gains and to build on their achievements,

graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds often feel pressured to prioritize affiliations with higher social and professional strata, while abandoning their original social milieus. “This does not mean abandoning a compulsory non-stop, no-play race, which often causes fatigue; this means assuming leadership positions in student clubs, networks, committees, and what not, on top of that”. As they try to do well both academically and socially, they definitely take on burdens that challenge their stamina. One student urged herself and others not to be mistaken:

you have to be self-disciplined to study because a lot of people spend their time playing during their stay at residence hall or have joined student committees.. [they] spend time on these and don’t study and in the end they get a super low GPA like one point something. So university is very much about self-discipline: if you don’t do your readings no one will do those for you. Meanwhile, students who were able to break their disadvantage by self-

discipline and hard work, while climbing hierarchies at home or abroad, are increasingly concerned about sustainability of their achievements. Many more students increase their chances of breaking away from local positions of low power by plugging into global places that provide more powers to international students, and hence create opportunities for advancement upon returning home or a chance to build success abroad. Across the border, mainland China returnees find it increasingly difficult to attain a powerful position upon returning home (The Economist 2013), and many of them also realized that they could easily end up in a less advantageous position despite the foreign credentials. As a larger number of these returnees seek job or additional degree opportunities in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong’s disadvantaged households feel threatened by the increasing competition in the higher education and labor markets.

Naturally, socio-economic, professional and institutional stratifications may be as precipitous elsewhere, as they are in Hong Kong. The degrees of stakeholder definitiveness, dormancy, dependence, or discretion can be difficult to unravel when social and economic power, legitimacy and urgency dissipate across multiple layers. For disadvantaged international students, who are low-skilled in self-management, autonomous decision-making, communication and social interaction, cross-border moves can turn out to be miscalculated risks, characterized by overblown expectations. The students can easily get stuck, given the increasing competition for access to prestigious degrees, dwindling public support to higher education, resentment about growing debts among local disadvantaged families, and lingering

16

prejudices and intolerance directed at international students in hosting jurisdictions. Stakeholder support schemes for higher learning may not entirely do away with risk-taking. For example, governmental loans for low-income families can increase debts, and plunge households into dire straits. Families and their offspring may find themselves caught up in escalating rounds of turbulence and risk.

Investment errors are very high in disadvantaged households. Mitigation of failures necessitates the presence of “important others,” who are willing to recognize the limitations of freedom and choice available to disadvantaged members of society. Indeed, what becomes obvious in view of the socio-economic, institutional, cultural and cognitive impasses emerging on the students’ learning and career paths, is that social mobility is not frictionless or linear. Hong Kong’s disadvantaged students find themselves pushing harder against the confluence of competitive pressures in schools and universities, fears about low returns on investment, status anxiety, intergenerational communication gaps, and other immobilizing predicaments. Defiance in the face of intimidating conditions is an essential driving force for deconstructing social conventions. However, when personal efforts and social forces fail to link up, many of the defiant students run the risk of becoming mired in detrimental environments and new cycles of disadvantage. Given the structural challenges, policy makers and education reformers need to focus attention, research, and innovation on enhancing stakeholder commitment to support of disadvantaged learners.

17

References Bourdieu, P. & Passeron, J.-C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and

culture. (Reprinted from 1977). London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Brooks, R. & Waters, J. (2011). Student mobilities, migration and the internationalization of higher education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cheng, C.H.H. (2001). Youth situation, youth policy and youth unemployment in Hong Kong. Paper prepared for ILO/Japan Tripartite Regional Meeting on Youth Employment in Asia and the Pacific Bangkok, 27 February – 1 March 2002.

Goodstadt, L. (2013). Poverty in the midst of affluence: How Hong Kong mismanaged its prosperity. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Greene, F. & Saridakis, G. (2008). The role of higher education skills and support in graduate self-employment. Studies in Higher Education, 33 (6), 653-672.

HK CSD – Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department (2013). Hong Kong monthly digest of statistics. http://www.statistics.gov.hk/pub/B10100022013MM04B0100.pdf (accessed on April 5, 2013)

HK CSD (2011). Quarterly report on general household survey (April – June 2011). www.censtatd.gov.hk (accessed on September 25, 2011).

HK CSD (2011). Thematic household survey: Report No. 46 (Hong Kong students studying outside Hong Kong, pp.5-28). http://www.statistics.gov.hk/publication/stat_report/social_data/B11302462011XXXXB0100.pdf (accessed on September 20, 2010).

HK CSD (2007). Thematic household survey: Report No. 29. Products and Services/ SocialData. http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/products_and_services/products/publications/statistical_report/social_data/index.jsp (accessed on September 20, 2010).

HK CSD (2005). Thematic household survey Report No. 21. Pattern of study in higher education (pp.8-46). Social Surveys Section. Census and Statistics Department. Products and Services/ Social Data. http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/products_and_services/products/publications/statistical_report/social_data/index.jsp (accessed on September 20, 2010).

HK CSD (2002). Thematic household survey: Report No. 9 (Hong Kong Students Studying Outside Hong Kong, pp.3-26). Products and Services/ Social Data. http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/products_and_services/products/publications/statistical_report/social_data/index.jsp (accessed on September 20, 2010).

Jongbloed, B., Enders, J. & Salerno, C. (2008). Higher education and its communities: Interconnections, interdependencies, and a research agenda. Higher Education, 56(3): 303-324.

Kell, P. & Vogl, G. (2012). International students in the Asia Pacific: Mobility, risks and global optimism. Dordrecht: Springer.

Kelly, P. & Ewell, P.T. (2009). College and universities and their stewardship of place: A guide for developing performance measures for the equity of access and student success. Boulder: National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.

LD - Labor Department (2010). Annual Report 2010. http://www.labour.gov.hk/eng/public/iprd/2010/home/report_2010.pdf (accessed on December 10, 2011).

LD – Labor Department (2012). Report of the policy study on standard working

18

hours. http://www.labour.gov.hk/eng/plan/pdf/swh/swh_report.pdf (accessed on April 23, 2013).

Li, J. (2009). Huge supply of graduates the cause of youth unemployment. China Daily (HK Edition), 26.06.2009. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2009-06/26/content_8324429.htm (accessed on September 5, 2011)

Li, T. & Zhang, J. (2010). What determines employment opportunity for college graduates in China after higher education reform? China Economic Review, 21(1), 38–50.

Marginson, S. (2004). Competition and Markets in Higher Education: a ‘glonacal’ analysis. Policy Futures in Education, 2 (2), 175-244.

Marginson, S. & Rhoades, G. (2002). Beyond national states, markets and systems of higher education: A glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education, 43, 3, 282-309.

McWilliam, E. (2008). The creative workforce: How to launch young people into high-flying futures. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.

Mok, K.H. (2008). Varieties of regulatory regimes in Asia: the liberalization of the higher education market and changing governance in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. The Pacific Review, 21, 2, 147–170.

Oleksiyenko, A., Cheng, K.M. & Yip, H.K. (2013). International student mobility in Hong Kong: Private good, public good or trade in services? Studies in Higher Education, 38 (7): 1079-1101.

Oleksiyenko, A. (2013). Opportunity structures and higher learning in a globally- connected place: Tensions and ties between outbound and upward mobility. Higher Education, 66 (3), 341-356.

Ong, A. (1999). Flexible citizenship: The cultural logistics of transnationality. Durham: Durham University Press.

Perna, L. (2006). Studying college access and choice: A proposed conceptual model. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. XXI, pp. 99–157). Dordrecht: Springer.

Perrons, D. (2004). Globalisation and social change: People and places in a divided world. London: Routledge.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (2010). Talent mobility 2020. London: PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Rowan-Kenyon, H. T., Perna, L. W. & Swan, A.K. (2011). Structuring opportunity: The role of School context in shaping high school students’ occupational aspirations. The Career Development Quarterly, 59(4), 330–344.

Sartre, J.P. (1956). Being and nothingness: An essay on phenomenological ontology. New York, NY: Philosophical Library.

School Safety Partners (2010). Suicide rate climbs again among young people in Hong Kong. http://www.schoolsafetypartners.org/international/232-Suicide-rate-climbs-again-among-young-people-Hong-Kong.html (accessed on January 13, 2012).

The Economist (2013). Plight of the sea turtles. July 6th, 2013. http://www.economist.com/news/china/21580470-students-coming-back-home-helped-build-modern-china-so-why-are-they-now-faring-so-poorly (accessed on September 13, 2013).

Thomas, S. & Perna, L. (2004). The opportunity agenda: A re-examination of postsecondary reward and opportunity. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. XIX, pp. 43–84). Dordrecht: Kluwer.

19

Urry, J. (2007). Mobilities. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Waters, J. (2006). Geographies of cultural capital: Education, international migration

and family strategies between Hong Kong and Canada. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 31, 2, 179-192.

Yip, P., Liu, K., Lam, T.H., Stewart, S.M., Chen, E., & Fan, S. (2004). Suicidality among high school students in Hong Kong, SAR. Suicide and Life- Threatening Behavior, 34(3), 284-297.

YEI - Youth Employment Inventory (2011). Youth Work Experience and Training Scheme – YWETS. http://www.youth-employment-inventory.org/inventory/view/121/ (accessed on December 10, 2011).