Abstract
“Study gods” (学神, xueshen), a term coined by sociologist Yi-lin Chiang, are elite Chinese youth who achieve exceptional academic success effortlessly. She distinguishes “study gods” from other hard-studying peers, such as “studyholics” (学霸, xueba). The effortless excellence gives high-performing students a godlike status, making them central figures among peers and favored by teachers and parents. Chiang explains that the elevated status of “study gods” is not associated with traits such as personal popularity, wealth, physical attractiveness, athletic talent, and so on, but purely with top academic performance (Chiang, 2022, p. 4). Maintaining high status requires consistently high test scores, which involves parental assistance. Parents play a crucial role in creating and sustaining the process of becoming “study gods.” Therefore, Chiang believes, “the making of ‘study gods’ is fundamentally an elite status reproduction process” (Chiang, 2022, p. 4).
The fieldwork of this book was conducted at two top-ranking high schools in Beijing. The first school, Pinnacle, established in the early twentieth century, has consistently been a top performer and is so academically outstanding that the media call it “the god-like high school.” The second school, Capital, founded around 1950 as an emerging school, has significantly improved its ranking and is now recognized as one of the nation’s “super high schools.” Drawing on interviews and observations of students, parents as well as teachers, Chiang asks a key question: How do the new elites from China prepare for global competition? Specifically, how did they become who they are? How have schools and families trained them? Chiang provided three explanations.
The first explanation is linked to the significance of scores within the Chinese educational context. These elite students believe that top-tier global education qualification serves as a reliable path to pursue and acquire global elite status. College admissions play a pivotal role in determining students’ ability and capital to compete internationally. Scores from standardized tests like the Gaokao and SAT are more than just selection criteria; they are seen as crucial gateways to the world’s leading universities, paving the way for students to join the global elite. Thus, “study gods” are deeply engaged in an exam- and score-oriented educational system, accumulating “numerical capital”—a prerequisite for becoming global elites. Preparing for university becomes a critical step for Chinese elite students to “learn about the rules of global status competition and train for status warfare” (Chiang, 2022, p. 12).
The second explanation is related to how elite students subjectively construct the rules of social games and then develop a clear status system to which they commit. Upon entering the academic field, the elite students collaboratively formulate a set of rules that integrates perceived diligence and academic performance (scores), establishing a structured status hierarchy. Thus, the hierarchy goes from “study gods” (xueshen) to “studyholics” (xueba), down to the “underachievers” (学渣, xuezha), and lastly, the so-called “losers” (学弱, xueruo) are at the bottom (Chiang, 2022, p. 41). Students at different positions navigate the status system differently, while all research participants acknowledge the rules of the game and rationalize their roles. Chiang underlines that taking one’s place in the merit-based structure is fundamental for the younger elite to figure out their position and identity in the workplace and they can take advantage of strategies they learned in high school to optimize their status when engaging in global competition (Chiang, 2022, pp. 59–67). In addition, the place a student holds in the status system shapes how they interact with others. Those at the apex of the pyramid are considered “stars” with all privileges, even the freedom to flout classroom rules; in contrast, students with lower status experience discrimination. In the process, students keep watch over each other to make sure that all actions will not break status boundaries and maintain the stability of the status system in daily practice. This system is transferred to elite professional settings, teaching them how to interact with colleagues and collaborators having varying levels of abilities.
The third explanation pertains to how elite students interact with significant others—teachers and parents. Teacher–student engagement and parent–student communication are both determined by students’ placement in the score-based hierarchy. Students are expected to respect their teachers and parents in the context of the Confucian tradition, yet those at the top of the pyramid have the entitlement to disregard, overlook, or even defy teachers’ and parents’ commands; however, students at the bottom of the pyramid must comply with and follow the teachers’ and parents’ directives. The different kinds of interactions between teachers and high-, and low-performance students unconsciously reinforce such numeric evaluation system interactions. The author found that teacher–student interaction shapes the way employer–employee connections because of the similarity between test orientation and job performance brunch (Chiang, 2022, pp. 124–128). The younger elite generation therefore learns how to get respect and deserved entitlement with superiors in the working context when they connect with teachers in high school. Nonetheless, teacher–parent collaboration in this study is ingenious and refined. Parents do not interfere with how teachers educate students in high school but focus on contingency strategies and give students prompt responses to avoid their being in disadvantaged conditions in the process of various examinations and applying for prestigious universities worldwide. Strategies such as retaking Gaokao, going abroad, scoring a few extra points ahead of Gaokao and so on all show elite parents’ anxiety about downward social mobility and their eagerness to reproduce the elite status. Elite parents place a high value on the reproduction of elite status; they not only offer the best training and resources but also fight alongside their children to win the game of elite competition (Chiang, 2022, pp. 178–182).
All in all, Chiang’s Study Gods is a meaningful piece of scholarship depicting a relatively understudied elite group in contemporary China. It vividly describes the picture of the reproduction of China’s new generation of elite, which is a long-term process involving multiple stakeholders and supported by sufficient capital. It also provides insight for scholars to explore global social inequity through the lens of China. Undoubtedly, this study is a beautifully written and carefully organized ethnography.
Arguably, this study rests on a doubtful premise: The status hierarchy is too rigidly defined. This rigidity overlooks how students deviate or are eliminated in the process of becoming elites. The study perceives all students as static, trapped in a system that labels them rigidly, without considering their dynamic paths. Becoming a “study god” is a perpetual contest, with no guarantee that students will maintain their rank throughout high school. The research fails to address how students diverge from their expected trajectories or rebel against the system.
Furthermore, this research does not sufficiently explain how the entitlement enjoyed by students in their domestic environment translates to success in cross-cultural educational or work settings. It only describes how these students accumulate initial advantages by graduating from top-ranked high schools in China, subsequently achieving elite status in society. To be sure, the term “study god” is a uniquely Chinese phenomenon, characterized by China’s specific competitive milieu, which prioritizes exams and academic performance, allowing top students to monopolize resources. The formation of elites in this study occurs within China’s unique competitive environment. Success is contingent upon the value generated by the labels students carry in the Chinese context. However, the research does not explore how these domestic advantages transfer to international academic or corporate settings. For instance, it is unclear whether a “study god” retains their exceptional status or advantages in a professional environment. Thus, it remains an open and debatable question whether the benefits and influences of elite high school education can be sustained over time.
Regardless, the book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students who conduct research in fields like the reproduction of elites, global inequality, and China studies.
