2017/09/17 by Chun‐Yi Sum · 12 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Global Education and Multiculturalism #Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development #Global Educational Reforms and Inequalities #Vision #China #Meaning (existential) #Sociology #Pedagogy #Modernity #Psychology #Political science
paper · doi:10.1080/14733285.2017.1380166
published in Children s Geographies 16(1), 15-26 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2017/09/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/04
Why do university students participate in extra-curricular activities in China? What do they seek in a meaningful education? This paper explains the rising interest in extra-curricular activities by looking into students’ frustration about classroom-bounded education in China’s universities. A transforming socio-economic landscape and increasing imagination about global modernity have inspired new neoliberal demands for practical knowledge and personal meaning. And yet, China’s universities have failed to keep up with students’ changing visions of education, success, and productive personhood. This paper explores students’ agentive pursuit of sociability and emotional sensitivity through extra-curricular activities as a lens to examine the fluidity of meaning-making in contemporary China. In the process, I discuss why self-reported aspirations in skill cultivation cannot encompass the range of motivations that have driven students to extra-curricular participation, and explain how the ethnographic method can help to address gaps of knowledge in inquiries about youthful aspirations.