Rural Youths Admitted to Elite Universities: “Empathy” and Destiny

Abstract “Empathy” is a common educational expectation among lower-class families, as well as a natural response by children. Through analysis of the growth narratives of a group of rural children who were born after the Opening and Reforms and achieved higher educational attainment, this study found that their “empathy” carried plural connotations, including love, understanding, affection, independence, and recompense. Although “empathy” allowed them to integrate into the family community, it also framed their role in the family, limited their emotional expression, and produced a relational structure between family members in which love and resentment were intertwined. However, the estrangement between rural children with higher educational attainment and their families was not insurmountable: by creatively exploring new methods of communication, emotional barriers which might form in an instant could also vanish in an instant.