Abstract
With the aim of bridging the gap between the understanding of individual agency and that of structural constraint, this article deals with the ways in which autobiographical research can provide insight into how individuals negotiate the social contexts in which they are located. Despite the strong utilitarian discourse about the centrality of English for social and economic advancement in Hong Kong, there has been insufficient attention paid to the affective and social aspects of different study and work experiences in which differing linguistic and cultural capitals are valued. With this neglect in mind, this reported study explores how two individuals engage in self-identification and self-scrutiny in the education, legal and media fields. This is a matter of interest with regard to the power of narration in organising and representing social reality, and the relevance of self-reflexivity to the development of agency and educational capital as recorded in narratives of transition. Writing autobiographical reflections on their experiences in institutions and social relationships gave the individuals a therapeutic opportunity to formulate clearer versions of their personal history and identity in their transition to work.
Introduction
Hong Kong was a British colony for over 150 years before it reverted to Chinese rule in July 1997. Issues of language in education have been an enduring theme there since the 1970s. Among the seven educational policy reports published between 1984 and 1997, more than half were about such issues (Education Commission, 1984, 1986, 1990, 1996). The concerns generally revolved around the compromises, expedients and consequences of the dual-language (Chinese and English) education system. From Cheng et al.’s (1973) At What Cost? Instruction through the English Medium in Hong Kong to Choi’s (2003) concern with ‘ultra-utilitarianism and linguistic imperialism in education in post-1997 Hong Kong’ and recent reports of increasing dissatisfaction with Hong Kong as ‘a city of broken English’ (South China Morning Post, 2013) in view of its international financial status, the medium-of-instruction policy has continued to attract high levels of public interest and engagement since the political handover (Choi, 2003; Morris and Adamson, 2010; Morrison and Lui, 2000; Poon, 2004, 2010, 2013).
The transition from Hong Kong’s colonial status appears to have strengthened the division among and within schools along the lines of language. During colonial times, there were different forms of bilingual practice in the school system: many English-medium secondary schools taught so little in English that they barely merited the name. However, already a year after the political takeover by the Chinese government, there was unambiguously strong boundary-maintenance with respect to the medium of instruction in practice. Chinese became the mandatory medium of instruction in government and government-aided secondary schools in September 1998. Only about a quarter of secondary schools were given special exemptions, allowing English as the medium for their first-year intakes (12-year-old students). These English-medium schools are academically selective and likely to have socially advantaged intakes, as they did during colonial times. Unlike Singapore’s streaming policy, which requires even the weakest students to develop literacy in English, in Hong Kong, English is classified as a viable language among academically able students only. According to a longitudinal study which tracked the academic performance of 37,277 students from their first year of secondary schooling in 1998 and 1999 (when the mother-tongue teaching policy was in place) until they completed the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination in 2005 and 2006, 1 English had developed into the ‘educationally profitable linguistic capital’ needed for gaining entrance to university (South China Morning Post, 2008). Lately, with mounting pressure from various stakeholders (e.g. parents, teachers and school sponsoring bodies), the Education Bureau has resolved to fine-tune the medium-of-instruction policy by relaxing the rules governing schools’ language use. Since September 2010, secondary schools have been allowed to make professional judgments on the most appropriate language of instruction for their students in accordance with teachers’ capability to teach in English, school support measures and learners’ needs. The choice and number of subjects taught in English may vary between classes within individual schools, as well as among schools. This policy has allowed aspiring Chinese-medium secondary schools to opt for some instruction in English due to its instrumental benefits, and to offer extended English activities for a quarter of their instructional time. The entrenched prestige of English-medium education as a positional good has produced a persistent devaluing of Chinese-medium education. Parents’ aspirations for overseas education, which promises desirable credentials and a favourable English learning environment, have also contributed to the situation.
Despite the growing importance of Putonghua with the shift in global power relations, there has been a strong utilitarian discourse about the centrality of English for social and economic advancement in Hong Kong throughout its post-colonial era. English is perceived as a marker of competence, confidence, success and status, giving access to alternative realities in educational and occupational progressions. The distribution of respect and significance according to occupational achievement has a strong bearing on the instrumental and symbolic values of English, in both study and work contexts. The more utilitarian the schools, the more instrumental their relation to English and the stronger the public pride (or shame) which is shared by learners for being successful (or unsuccessful) in an education system that prizes success in English as educational capital for personal advancement (Choi, 2014). In addition, as Bernstein (1971: 54) stressed, the mode of language used ‘involves the whole personality of the individual, the very character of his social relationships, his points of reference, emotional and logical, and his conception of himself’. The acquisition of English as cultural capital shapes legitimated ways of thinking, relating and feeling. It carries the potential of the alienation of feeling from thought and of the self from others (Choi, 2014). There has been insufficient attention paid to these affective and social aspects of different study and work experiences, in which differing linguistic and cultural capitals are valued. This is an important neglect, in view of the recognition of the affective and social dimensions in second-language acquisition (Ellis, 1997; Lightbown and Spada, 2006), and the relevance of self-reflexivity to the development of agency and educational capital, as recorded in narratives of transition (Beard et al., 2007; Hernandez-Martinez and Williams, 2013; Lehmann, 2014). With the aim of narrowing the gap between the understanding of individual agency and that of structural constraint, this article illuminates through a case study the possibility of extending ‘stories of action’ into ‘theories of context’ (Goodson, 2003; Goodson and Sikes, 2001) by examining how two undergraduates negotiate their lived experiences within the schooling system and from university to work in Hong Kong.
Power, narratives of transition, and self-reflexivity
If the reflexivity of feminist theory and methodology is accepted, autobiographical writing is a useful resource for relevant individuals to theorise their complex social positionings as an amalgam of the present and past in order to examine their multiple identities and to subvert dominant discourses (Miller, 1995; Reay, 1997, 2005; Steedman, 1986). The relevance of autobiographical reflection for developing agency and educational capital can be summarised as follows: writers experience a developing sense of agency, leading to awakenings, transformations and changes in practice (Clandinin and Connelly, 1994, 2000); they further historicise the social contexts in which their dispositions were acquired by putting their life and development into question, as well as setting their life and history ‘within contexts more capacious than their own’ (Miller, 1995: 23); moreover, they re-story alternative experiences through reflexive consciousness, which works ‘against those forces that make for conformity and unthinking acceptance of reality’ (Graham, 1991: 101).
Furthermore, the benefits of adopting autobiographical strategies for teachers’ professional learning are highlighted by Goodson and Sikes (2001: 73–74) in terms of benefits accruing ‘from space to reflect’, affording ‘therapeutic and cathartic benefits in times of crisis’; ‘from engaging in self-reflection’; and ‘from learning about schools and schooling, theory and lived experience’, thereby aiding theoretical insight into research on life history in educational settings. In order to materialise the potential benefits of autobiographical studies, Goodson and Sikes (2001: 86) maintain the importance of moving ‘from life stories to life histories, from narratives to genealogies of context, towards a modality that embraces stories of action within theories of context’. The recognition of life stories as social constructions allows for scrutiny of the wider reality and power structures in which objective experiences and subjective perspectives are located.
By recognising the power of narration in organising and representing social reality, this article attempts to understand or interpret relevant phenomena through the meanings that individuals bring to their lives in their movements across social space. As Aldous et al. (2014: 187) contend: ‘any understanding of transitional experience must account for the complex relations and processes that provide meaning to the transitional experience of individuals’. By exploring how two real individuals engage in self-identification and self-scrutiny in the education, legal and media fields, this article argues for the relevance of self-reflexivity to the development of agency and educational capital. Precisely, the individuals interact reflexively with their social circumstances, take strategic risks in making crucial life-course decisions, and ascribe meaning to the complex relations and processes of their transitions (Lehmann, 2009).
Methodology
In order to achieve ‘an increased knowledge of human variety and a deepened appreciation of the lives of others’ (Erben, 1996: 162), the notions of autobiographical power, self-reflexivity and field are explored in this article through the medium of a case study. As Bourdieu (1993) pointed out, it is the specificity of an empirical reality that gives transitional experience a dynamic quality. A case-study approach thus offers the possibility of examining how ‘subjects in and of a field are shaped, constrained and disposed towards thoughts and actions through their immersion in, and their incorporation of, the (explicit and implicit) rules, procedures, rituals, mechanisms, capital and values of the field’ (Schirato and Webb, 2003: 545). The employment of an autobiographical method is deemed appropriate for this particular research purpose of seeking to acquire a deeper understanding of how individuals negotiate the social contexts in which they are situated, and of the dynamics between structural and cultural influences on people’s paramount realities in a given social world. The use of positivist approaches, with their emphases on disinterestedness and non-interaction, would not be able to adequately account for the diverse experiences and perceptions of people in the same social context (Cameron et al., 1992; Goodson and Sikes, 2001).
Data collection and analysis
The writing data collected and analysed for this article came from a larger project associated with autobiographical reflection as a progressive, cumulative enterprise for the development of agency, educational capital and identity in initial teacher preparation. The potential contributors were the early cohorts of Hong Kong students who entered their first year of secondary schooling when the mother-tongue teaching policy was implemented and who had achieved entry into a middle-status university in pursuance of a four-year joint Bachelor’s degree in English and Education Studies. The rationale of the study was communicated to them through email correspondence in the last term of their undergraduate career: writing the autobiographical reflections on their experiences in institutions and social relationships would provide them with a therapeutic opportunity to formulate clearer versions of their personal history and identity in their transition to work. These target undergraduates were biliterate (Chinese and English) and trilingual (Cantonese, Putonghua and English). They were comfortable with producing their autobiographical accounts in written English with example and relevant categories of transitional experiences as prompts (e.g. first encounters, sense of difference, hopes and fears, power and powerlessness, stereotypes and public personas, triumphant moments, time past and regrets, turning points and significant others). Participation was voluntary. No drafts were produced or discussed with the present investigator. The project yielded a sample of 10 distinct but related trajectories from 20 target participants. Of these, the transitional experiences of Andrew and Emma provide a nuanced understanding of how individuals negotiate the social circumstances in which they are placed. 2 The findings will hopefully aid theoretical insight into research on life history in educational settings (Goodson, 1992, 2003; Goodson and Sikes, 2001).
Methodological issues
In advocating that biographical approaches and life history methods are beneficial for studying the lived experiences, motivations and values of individuals in their social contexts, there are methodological issues to be addressed. The first of these issues relates to the researcher and the researched. It is important to recognise that situated knowledge – whether of the researcher or the researched – is relational (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Researchers occupy privileged positions in their academic space through language use and biographical idiosyncrasy (Bourdieu, 1990; Patai, 1994). As researchers objectify their own selves in objectifying the studied lives of others, it is pertinent for them to eschew any impositions of meaning on the study contexts which are part of their own circumstances. For informants, Goodson and Sikes (2001: 84) suggest that ‘social structures may push [their] storylines in particular directions and the stories then legitimate the structures, and so on, in a self-legitimating circle’. Researchers should be keenly aware that the cumulative construal of an autobiographical account might ‘supply increasingly refined explanations, but not complete knowledge of the text’ (Erben, 1996: 160).
The second issue for consideration is the nature of writing data produced in a second language. The autobiographical accounts, which were not produced in the individuals’ first language, may appear stilted and convoluted to native speakers of English. It may be argued that the linguistic and sociocultural leanings of the present investigator have helped her read through the idiosyncratic autobiographical accounts. The contributors’ earnest attempts to weave their transitional experiences into a unity of meaning through English could more than anything else reflect their successful learner identities as they seek to make an impression on the reader. These individuals’ struggles with English acquisition in the early stages of schooling and their strong sense of wanting to learn should be remembered. As Britton et al. (1975: 39) maintain: ‘The language available to us influences our experience at intimate levels and if we manage to convey experience precisely, that may be due partly to the fact that available modes of expression were influencing the experience from the start’. The ‘performances’ of these struggling and aspiring second-language learners and users could only accentuate the role of English for them as a potential means whereby consciousness, dispositions and desire are specialised and distributed, and whereby empowerment is gained. If these apparently stilted and convoluted introspections are read in this kinder light, the contributors could almost be appreciated for their ‘performative’ English, which afforded them a semantic space to locate their narratives of transition within the social structure.
Narratives of transition: retrospect and prospect
Capital and social consciousness
The interpretive analysis is based on the transitional experiences of Andrew and Emma, with economic constraints and limited educational inheritance. Both were the first in their immediate or extended families to receive higher education: I was born into a financially insecure family; but my parents shared a common goal of providing me with a quality home and school education, despite their limited education (not to mention their sensitivity to the English language). They tried at all costs to get me into respectable if not prestigious schools and adhered to the most stringent disciplinary measures at home. Their determination and expectations [of me] surely helped shape who I am today. (Andrew) My parents both came from humble origins. They ended studies and started the bread and butter for their big families at a very young age. When I was three, my dad took up three jobs and woke up at three every dawn. Gathering more monetary capital was my parents’ first priority [in life]. In return, I received little cultural capital from them … I wasn’t ambitious in my studies because I didn’t have to [be]. My mum was happy enough to see me in the top ten. I got admitted to a neighbouring reputable primary school. My dad, however, was a little upset about my failing to get into a more prestigious primary school for girls. (Emma) My father used to be a taxi driver and he took me to [primary] school every day, only to encounter a raft of the likes of Lamborghini, Ferrari and Mercedes Benz. I recall my schoolmates jumping out from their parents’ limousines or roadsters, communicating in perfect English. I might be stretching the truth that I could not decipher their conversations at all. I was sure that it was impossible to do it on my end – a sense of difference ensued and left me puzzled if affluence was tied in with high-level English education in Hong Kong. (Andrew) This secondary school that I was going to was (and still is) famous for its academic excellence and long-standing history. Its ‘class [distinction]’ intimidated my primary schoolmates. To put it blatantly, it is where the rich kids go. None of us actually belonged to that school stratum … [In] the first morning assembly, the principal, vice-principal, priest and head girl all spoke in an ‘alien’ (English) language. Even the girl sitting next to me appeared to be a little ‘alien’, who nodded and laughed at the occasional joke. When it came to the hymn singing part, I was much confused by the ‘thy’ and ‘thou’ in old English. I was not able to sing along, even though I knew its Chinese version perfectly well. I had never felt so inferior [to others]. (Emma)
Reflexive strategies and learner identity
Despite their struggles with English acquisition in the early stages of schooling, Andrew and Emma were endowed with a strong sense of wanting to learn. Their motivation for self-improvement through self-regulation and reflexive strategies enabled them to negotiate successful learner identities in their formative years: Thanks to the monotonous grammar teaching and learning over my junior secondary years, I started to develop fluency in English. My sprouting capacity of spoken English took my teachers, classmates, and even myself unawares. I was then nominated to participate in an annual English debate competition. With an eagerness to prove myself, I strove to expand my vocabulary bank, better my grammar, and put on an American accent (for that was what I heard from high flyers and my rich classmates). (Andrew) A sense of security ensued when I was able to see patterns out of English, however boring this way of instruction might sound. But the clarity of grammar did not make me an active English user. English was a long-time acquaintance of mine; but a soulful connection had yet to be forged, or an impulse was needed to further the relationship … The more I read, the less fear I tended towards English. The next thing I knew was that I had been virtually immersed in English/American teenage culture. … A better command of English enabled me to be more expressive and to write succinct answers, empowering me to swim up. (Emma)
Both individuals went on to read English for future teachers at a middle-status university, despite slight setbacks in their Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination, with less satisfactory results than expected. University life was depicted as life-saving and life-enhancing in their autobiographical accounts, and as enabling them to become independent, critical and cultured individuals through creative empowerment: Time and time again I see my life map out as a series of fortunes in mischances … My university days, ornamented with incredible fulfilment and disenchantment, have been made meaningful by many tender hearts. (Andrew) My university life has been rather like a roller-coaster ride, both time-wise and fun-wise. My initial sense of inferiority and alienation was cast away with my attention redirecting to the wise words of lecturers, professors and scholars whom I met in person or on paper. I brought home every day a few mottos to note down, a few matters to ponder upon, a few targets to strive for … while biding time to cultivate my culture, to observe my temperament, and to establish my philosophy. (Emma)
Life-course decisions and self-identification
Neither Andrew nor Emma was attracted to the field of education, despite having devoted time and money to their professional degree. They accounted for their change of direction as follows: After my three periods of teaching practicum, I was sure that I would not settle my life into teaching, so I did not even make one single application to any schools. Although being a teacher yields a good monetary return, I hated that I should be conforming to the preconceived notion of teaching in financial terms. (Andrew) With my qualifications in English and education studies it should be the logical next step for me to look for full-time English teaching positions upon graduation. However, I was after freelance work while enjoying the world of time for my own creative projects. I knew I wanted to achieve more and I was aware of the importance of gaining more experience in life before I could achieve further goals … I also came to the realisation that parents might interfere with a teacher’s decisions and make unreasonable requests to achieve immediate results for their children. Education has become a commodity which I hasten to differ. (Emma) With few career options beyond teaching at hand, I considered the legal publishing industry and was lucky enough to be offered an internship to work as researcher/writer at a renowned organisation specialising in assessing international law firms … Failed attempts saw me working as account manager in a mid-tier international law firm, where I performed multi-faceted duties … For some peculiar reason, a Magic Circle (top-tier) law firm took me on their marketing team as a pitch specialist. I was sure there were many other more qualified candidates for their consideration. It was a god-send comparable to the glittering prize of Cambridge which I had been denied … My luck strikes me if clichéd perseverance is actually a way out for eternal struggles, at least career-wise. (Andrew) As ironic as it sounds, I am pursuing a career as voice actress, which requires the least of English proficiency. Dubbing had always been one of my dream jobs. I used to mute the television and did impromptu voice over for some cartoon characters when I was little … I chanced to come across an advertisement from a local television broadcasting company looking for dubbing artists. Not bearing any hope, I turned in my application and audio-recordings in both Cantonese and English as instructed. A week later, I was selected from thousands of applicants for an audition. I then went through a training of seven weeks, passed two examinations and became a voice actress. So it was like a dream come true, knowing that it not only required talent but also luck to be a dubbing artist in a leading television company. (Emma)
Relatedly, though differently, Andrew appeared to be unprepared for his progressively improving fortune, which challenged his personal belief in ‘perseverance’ as ‘a way out for eternal struggles’. Having turned the unthinkable into possibilities, he credited his luck in entering the prestigious legal industry as ‘a god-send comparable to the glittering prize of Cambridge which [he] had been denied’. At the same time, he discredited himself as an undeserving aspirant in the legal field against ‘many other more qualified candidates’. As a ‘non-traditional’ legal apprentice, Andrew was overwhelmed by the privileged workplaces and, due to his sense of inadequacy, lacked a sense of entitlement to these. This sense of belittlement and disentitlement recalls Goffman’s (1963) consideration of the social processes of devaluation and the unjust effects of stigma assignment.
Beyond their first successes in the transition to work, Andrew and Emma were socially aware of unequal starting points and life chances in their respective fields: The continued exposure to landmark transactions and communication with established lawyers sparked an intense interest in me to pursue an external degree in law with London University. I felt that it might be a climbing ladder now that I had dabbled in the prestigious legal industry. Knowing that I would need at least five years to complete the relevant degree, I tried to force myself into any positions preferably in business development at international law firms only to realise on LinkedIn (a social networking website for professionals) that a vast majority of sought-after professionals were educated overseas, or from top universities. (Andrew) The taste of success in setting my foot on the media ladder did not last long and soon I had to face an entirely new environment. I had been told that ‘the “showbiz” dyes one’s soul’; but it was quite another thing experiencing it personally. Immediately I was aware of the unspoken hierarchy within the TV company with some people given more chances to play lead roles. This reminded me of George Orwell’s saying that ‘all animals are equal but some are more equal than others’. (Emma)
Language and workplace endorsement
Legal professionals (‘from well-heeled families that could easily afford overseas education’) display a ‘natural distinction’ (Bourdieu, 1990) in English acquisition and financial matters, associated with their parents’ high levels of educational inheritance, as well as in commanding their own economic capital (through ‘dealing with real property and foreign currency’) and social capital (as embodied in ‘their wide networks of friends’), as the subsequent extract suggests. For the modest newcomer to place his foot on the legal ladder, the necessary first strategic steps were to grapple with the immediate English-language demands and overcome his ‘deep-rooted fear of financial concepts’, as denoted in Andrew’s ‘rough start’ in the legal field: It was a rough start with my task to conduct interviews with leading lawyers (mostly native English speakers) from different Asian countries and the technical sectors (like banking, aviation and project finance). So language was one major issue among all other challenges. I remember there were times when I had to take repeated deep breaths to calm my nerves that led to uncomfortable pauses, or to daft questions. Unsurprisingly, a law firm notorious for being aggressive in marketing logged a complaint on me with the chief editor. It was, if anything, discouraging because I did not see any of my colleagues, who were either British- or Canadian-born Chinese, or from well-heeled families that could easily afford overseas education, having such embarrassing language issues. It was equally unnerving to me that they appeared to have had a natural acquisition and understanding of financial matters (thanks to their parents’ experience of dealing with real property and foreign currency, and to their wide networks of friends, etc.). It took me quite some time to come to grips with the language demands. I also had a deep-rooted fear of financial concepts. (Andrew)
Beyond language matters, the significance of Andrew’s background for his experience of struggling as a cultural outsider in a strange, unfriendly world unfolded further in social interactions: Feeling out of my depth from time to time, I got to admit that my inferior complex made life much harder than it should be, and some of my colleagues were fast to exploit that. There was one female colleague who made her personal grudge against me so explicitly that I was on the verge to confront her. Never did anyone explain her unfair treatment (starting from day one) towards me, but judging from her daily conversations I could almost confirm that her prestigious background had prompted her to treat me as her inferior in connection with my humble origins. (Andrew)
Emma also narrated her fair share of intimidation in her social interactions within the ‘showbiz’ industry, albeit of a different relational structure: My education background happened to be more of a social obstacle to my work; for example, my emphasis on the ‘D’ sound had been imitated by mischievous colleagues for at least a month. How ridiculous was that? Not wanting to defend myself at the cost of jeopardising my social life, I simply dismissed the ridicule with a laugh. I used to be surrounded by literate and cultured people who either spoke beautiful English or tried hard to speak beautiful English. It was probably the first time in my life when I was accused of using proper English. I felt a little upset that I couldn’t fight for a chance to educate my colleagues (as artists/media workers) who had got the English pronunciation wrong. There were other funny stories on how my English appeared to be a disadvantage at work. It is somehow unfair to say that my English education background had only brought me trouble as there were occasional opportunities bestowed favourably upon me at work. For instance, I was offered to do the English voice over for the commercial of a volleyball world championship, because they knew that ‘there’s a dubbing artist who speaks English’. (Emma)
Ambivalence and self-scrutiny
With their individual dispositions rooted in their social origins and successful learner identities, Andrew and Emma concluded their narratives of work with an undertone of ambivalence about their life-course decisions: The mere thought of pursuing my lawyer dream in a competitive, demanding and elite environment strikes me as a challenge on a wholly different level. At times I am perplexed by my emerging aspiration to be a lawyer: is it an extended quest for fame from my bygone undergraduate days or a real career ambition free of any ingrained symbolic struggle? I do not mind keeping my nose to the grindstone; but I will have to ascertain and maintain some of my core values along the way. At any rate, I shall keep reflecting and readjusting while waiting in the wings. (Andrew)
With a more creative outlook, Emma’s ambivalence spoke of her uncertain ambition as she followed a career path ‘outside the privileging English-speaking worlds’. She clearly identified her literate, cultured and aspiring self with the English-speaking communities to which she belonged and in which she took pride: It is hard to convince others that my English education background has not gone to waste in choosing a career path that is somewhat outside the privileging English-speaking worlds. But I have never considered university as a vocational centre. It is unwise to frame or limit my future by my education background … The creative and critical thinkers, the thought-provoking books, the mind-blowing films, the eye-opening trips have nourished who I am. I never quit learning. I dream big and thanks to the wise words from the English-speaking worlds, I am resilient enough to gather strengths from setbacks. (Emma)
Implications and conclusion
This article began with a discussion of the historical role and implications of English as the favoured and hegemonic language in Hong Kong education. The retention of English in Hong Kong schools through its post-colonial era highlights an uncritical view, mediated through an economic utility discourse, of English as vital because it is an international language of trade and overseas study. As Lin (1997: 431) observes: ‘this saturation of consciousness by the “economic argument” has legitimised the subordination of all sociocultural and educational goals to the single goal of mastering a socially, culturally, and linguistically distant language for the majority of children in Hong Kong’. Similarly, Choi (2003: 691) challenges the elitist orientation of this ‘narrowly utilitarian and labour market-driven goal of education’, which favours the socially endowed because of the consequent language selection policy.
The foregoing narrative analysis has added nuances to an understanding of the hegemonic discourse of English as a potential means whereby consciousness, dispositions and desire are specialised and distributed, and whereby power, language and identity are negotiated, as in the education, legal and media fields. The two narratives of transition challenge the confident assumption that English-medium education is intrinsically ‘good’ because of the position of English as an international language. It may be argued that English-medium education tends to promote unequal opportunity for learners on the basis of social background; class disparity is generally reinforced by the requirements for good English in elite study and work contexts. The classification and stratification of learners through English extends to their transition to higher education and the labour market – and continues to determine the underlying principles of a social division of labour.
Despite the limitations of this modest engagement with two autobiographies, the narratives of transition, when located in the wider context, have provided useful implications for research on life history in educational settings.
Narratives of transition and social context
The engagement with life history research needs to embrace broader historical and political discourses (Goodson, 2003). As Goodson and Sikes put it: What we are searching for here is a way of locating our scrutiny of stories to show that the general forms, schemata, skeletons and ideologies, which we often employ in structuring the way we tell our individual tales, come from the wider culture. Hence it is an illusion to think that we capture only the person’s voice when we capture a personal story. What we capture is a mediation between the personal voice and wider cultural imperatives. In stressing the importance of contextualisation, life history makes this mediation explicit. (Goodson and Sikes, 2001: 77)
Historical and sociological insights into an education system which values English as capital have enabled the present investigator to locate the two narratives of transition and to select frameworks for their interpretation. The social practices of inclusion and exclusion, of domination and submission, foreground the individuals’ transitional experiences. The interpretive analysis shows how the ‘best’ students, who will learn English, are privileged (Choi, 2003), while the majority, who prove less worthy of English instruction, are marginalised, thus strengthening patterns of domination. As Goodson and Sikes (2001: 110) put it: ‘education has traditionally and formally been used [as] a means of interrupting selected lives and setting them down alternative paths’. In order to widen learners’ life chances for alternative realities, it is incumbent on teachers to make the English language accessible, meaningful and relevant for their struggling students who desire an English-medium education for its socio-economic value, despite their initial constraints (Lin, 2001).
In order to promote social justice in education, it is essential for teacher candidates to be equipped with a repertoire of linguistic and cultural resources during initial teacher preparation. Recruiting suitably motivated teachers from different backgrounds to the education field can be favourably viewed as providing ‘a cultural resource’ and ‘a range of narratives and discourses’ (Crozier et al., 2008: 265). The two aspiring individuals’ choices of non-education fields, despite having earned their professional teaching qualification, are a cause for concern. With increasing teacher burnout and dropout in this age of regulation, standardisation, high-stakes assessments and accountability (Choi, 2013), it has been a challenge to recruit teachers who are committed to providing an increasingly diverse student population with a school education of high quality.
Psychosocial processes of identity formation and fields
A case-study approach offers the possibility to examine how dominant field-specific discourses interact with individual dispositions and affects, the consequences of such interactions, and how individuals are implicated in institutional and social processes (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Hunter and Cooke, 2014). The engagement with autobiographical writing is also beneficial because it gives a therapeutic opportunity for the respondents themselves to formulate clearer versions of their personal history and identity as affected by their transition to work. Although reflexivity is best identified as a collective process, it is necessary to maintain that ‘reflexivity can and does inform individual practices, since fields themselves are partly constituted through, and articulated in terms of the individual practices of members of the collective’ (Schirato and Webb, 2003: 551). While there is an element of individual psychology in reflexive consciousness, the relative autonomy of the cultural field (e.g. the media) vis-à-vis the economic field (e.g. the law) (Bourdieu, 1984) appears to have a bearing on identity struggles against dominant field-specific discourses. Understandably, each field has its own range of interest and disinterest, as well as its strategy of symbolic distinction. The narratives of transition to work highlight field-specific relations to language and identity through social interactions and processes. Further to the recognition of a class-based relation to language and education, ‘non-traditional’ candidates in the privileging legal field could experience a heavier penalty from class consciousness than their media counterparts, in that ‘agents’ perceptions and strategies are connected to their position in the wider society as well as their position in the specific field of endeavour’ (Collins, 2000: 67).
In conclusion, the narratives of transition selected for this article have shed light on the wider social reality and the complex psychosocial processes of identity formation in relation to English as a hegemonic discourse in Hong Kong. The general arguments against an uncritically utilitarian view of proficiency in English as neutral and beneficial in study and work contexts might prove of interest beyond the modest engagement reported here.