TY - JOUR
T1 - Chasing the unreachable ‘university dream’
T2 - an active life course approach integrating chronopolitics
AU - Ng, Rainbow Wing Yan
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by PhD studentship of the author under Hong Kong Research Grant Council Grant award number 12646816. I thank the Lord for granting me wisdom. I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Bailey for reading my first draft. I am grateful for the helpful and insightful comments from the two anonymous reviewers and the Editors. Thanks also to the students who participated in this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021/9/3
Y1 - 2021/9/3
N2 - This paper applies an active life course approach to the context of self-financed Associate’s degree (AD) education in Hong Kong to explore the agency and precarities of youth navigating the transitional spaces of education. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, group discussions, participant observation, diary studies and grounded theories, I describe AD students’ loss of dignity, path dependency and experience of giving up on their dreams. I argue that these specific emotional/affective precarities are created by Hong Kong’s education system together with societal norms and expectations regarding education. However, by using and reworking their affective relations with others, young people can subvert these precarities to plot a new life course, seek agency and find meaning through integrating chronopolitics and the practices of care. The paper enriches understanding of the geographies of educational and youth precarities, emotion/affect, chronopolitics and the life course approach.
AB - This paper applies an active life course approach to the context of self-financed Associate’s degree (AD) education in Hong Kong to explore the agency and precarities of youth navigating the transitional spaces of education. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, group discussions, participant observation, diary studies and grounded theories, I describe AD students’ loss of dignity, path dependency and experience of giving up on their dreams. I argue that these specific emotional/affective precarities are created by Hong Kong’s education system together with societal norms and expectations regarding education. However, by using and reworking their affective relations with others, young people can subvert these precarities to plot a new life course, seek agency and find meaning through integrating chronopolitics and the practices of care. The paper enriches understanding of the geographies of educational and youth precarities, emotion/affect, chronopolitics and the life course approach.
KW - caring
KW - chronopolitics
KW - Hong Kong
KW - Life course
KW - precarities
KW - youth
UR - https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cchg/2021/00000019/00000005/art00009
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85114403044&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14733285.2021.1975261
DO - 10.1080/14733285.2021.1975261
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85114403044
SN - 1473-3285
VL - 19
SP - 609
EP - 621
JO - Children's Geographies
JF - Children's Geographies
IS - 5
ER -