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Morality, Cosmopolitanism, or Academic Attainment? Discourses on “Quality” and Urban Chinese‐Only‐Children's Claims to Ideal Personhood
Author(s) -
FONG VANESSA L.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
city and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1548-744X
pISSN - 0893-0465
DOI - 10.1525/city.2007.19.1.86
Subject(s) - personhood , morality , cosmopolitanism , ideal (ethics) , modernity , sociology , aesthetics , quality (philosophy) , gender studies , epistemology , political science , law , philosophy , politics
The term “quality” ( suzhi ) has become a ubiquitous part of Chinese popular discourses and the focus of Chinese educational campaigns. Amorphous, multivalent, and widely used, the term “high quality” represents a kind of ideal personhood associated with urban modernity. Based on 32 months of participant observation conducted in schools and homes in a Chinese city between 1997 and 2006, this paper examines how and why urban Chinese only‐children with various different strengths in morality, cosmopolitanism, and academic attainment chose, defended, and promoted definitions of quality that favored their own strengths.