Foregrounding intersectionality in rural youth’s schooling experiences in China: a queer re-reading

Abstract

This article uses a queer lens in an intersectional analysis of students’ schooling experiences in rural China. I argue that a queer perspective has been largely neglected and issues related to sexuality have not been carefully investigated in Chinese educational contexts. Drawing on queer theory and an intersectional framework, I re-interpret one of my earlier qualitative studies ‘queerly’ and examine the different ways that the discourses of sexuality and gender shape rural Chinese students’ schooling lives. Findings reveal that these discourses marginalize both effeminate boys who demonstrate ‘too little’ masculinity and male ‘troublemakers’ who perform ‘too much’ masculinity. This queer route of rereading also disrupts other constructions of normalcy associated with class- and place-based identities, such as students’ ‘half-rural identity.’ The analysis shows the importance of foregrounding the intersectional dimensions of inequalities and embracing a queer theoretical framework in understanding rural education in China.

Keywords:

• Intersectionality
• queer theory
• sexuality
• masculinity
• reflexivity
• rural education in China

Notes

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Professor Nina Asher at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for her support and insightful comments in preparing this paper. An earlier version of this paper was written in Professor Asher’s Queering Curriculum and Teaching at the Intersections (QCTI) course. I would like to thank Diana Chandara and Ariana Yang for their critical feedback on prior drafts of this manuscript. Also, I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript for their generous comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In this article, I not only draw from queer theory but also from queer-crit theory. Because I do not primarily use critical race theory in this article, and race issues in China differ significantly from that in the United States and other Western countries, I choose to use ‘queer theory’ as an umbrella term to include the ‘queer’ and ‘intersectional’ aspects in queer-crit theory.

2 In China, a township usually consists of a few villages. A township is a higher level of administration than a village according to the structural hierarchy of China’s administrative division, which can be briefly described as The provincial—prefecture—county—township—village.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by China’s State Scholarship Fund.

This work was supported by China’s State Scholarship Fund.

Notes on contributors

Weijian Wang

Weijian Wang is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. His research interests include rural education in China, sociology of education, critical theories in education, and qualitative research methods.