A "Feel-Good" Future: Hopes and Class Identities Among Martial Arts Students in China. Issue 6 (July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dong, Xuan
• Is Part Of: Education and urban society. Volume 51:Issue 6(2019)
• Page Start: 848
• Page End: 867
• Publication Date: 2019-07
• Subjects: class identity -- martial arts education -- hope -- China; Education, Urban -- Periodicals; 370.11505
• DOI: 10.1177/0013124517747366
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-1245

Abstract

This article examines how a group of martial arts students in China make sense of their futures and how their hopes toward a "feel-good" future reveal and affect their perceived class identities. Twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in Dengfeng, a county-level city in central China. Dengfeng was home to 48 registered martial arts schools and more than 70, 000 full-time students in 2012. By uncovering the hopes, aspirations, and perceived class identities of people in martial arts schools, this article argues that the process of class-making for these martial arts students results in constantly reorienting their hopes. These hopes often reflect social comparisons with familiar others like parents, friends, and acquaintances.