‘If you take learning seriously, I’ll assign you to a good seat’: moralized seating order and the making of educational success in China’s public schools

ABSTRACT

This study explores the multilayered meanings of classroom seating order – a crucial spatial element of school life – and its influences on children’s experiences. Drawing on fieldwork in a secondary school in northwest China, I ethnographically examine how school educators impose a hierarchy of seats in moral terms. My study shows that classroom seating arrangements in China’s underprivileged public schools are perceived as a hierarchy. Teachers motivate students to take learning seriously by strategically assigning the students to hierarchical seating locations and manipulating the proximity of their seats. I contend that classroom seating order has been transformed into a symbolic hierarchy to cultivate students’ attitude, a moral attribute considered crucial for achieving educational success. This study contributes to the emerging literature on the space in relation to educational processes. By situating the classroom seating into broader social-cultural-economic processes, it also demonstrates the methodological value of ethnographical examination of classroom.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom
• seating order
• school success
• ethnography
• youth
• China

Acknowledgments

This study has benefitted from generous comments by many scholars. I thank Cindy Clark, Cati Coe, Vanessa Fong, Michael Herzfeld, Arthur Kleinman, Orna Naftali, Elisa Sobo, Rachael Stryker, James L. Watson, Rubie Watson, and two anonymous reviewers for suggestions about earlier drafts. I also extend my gratitude to colleagues who provided valuable feedback when versions of this article were presented at the following workshops and conferences: Multiple Childhoods/Multidisciplinary Perspectives: Interrogating Normativity in Childhood Studies, Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University-Camden, May 20, 2011; and 2015 ACYIG Conference, Long Beach, CA, 12–15 March 2015. The research, writing, and revision process for this article was funded by a Desmond and Whitney Shum Research Fellowship from the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, a Cora Du Bois Thesis Fellowship, a grant from the Asia Center at Harvard University, a Graduate Society Dissertation Completion Fellowship at Harvard University, a postdoctoral fellowship from the Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a postdoctoral fellowship from the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a visiting scholar fellowship from East Asian Institute at National University of Singapore. My deepest gratitude goes to the students, parents, and teachers who befriended and assisted me during my fieldwork in Languan county of northwest China.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Min Zhang http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7779-1582

Notes

1 I have changed the names of all individuals and all identifying details.

2 In his second lecture on the relation between schooling and children, Dewey (1907) specifically criticised the fixed-row arrangements as a significant physical bias that impede children’s democratic participation.

3 There are few systematic surveys on class size in China’s public schools. In rural areas, as indicated by several empirical studies, there may be as many as 70 students per class (see Salili, Zhou, and Hoosain 2003; Kipnis, 2011).

4 In Languan, the area of classroom may vary even within the same school. On average, it is about 60 square metres.

5 As is common in other schools across the region, classrooms in Languan are seldom equipped with microphones, overhead projectors, screens, or other instructional aids.

6 It should be noted that the use of classroom seating to influence students’ attitudes is more prevalent in middle-school classes, as school educators consider middle-school students, who usually age between 12 and 16 years, to lack maturity and require more instructions.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University: [grant number Desmond and Whitney Shum Research Fellowship]; The Cora Du Bois Charitable Trust: [grant number Du Bois Fellowship].