Yi-Lee Wong
Biographic Data
| ID | 281523 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Yi-Lee Wong |
| GIVEN NAMES | Yi-Lee |
| FAMILY NAME | Wong |
| SIGNATURE | WONG Y |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Macau |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8934-2853 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 24 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Access to top universities through alternative pathways
Higher education has expanded rapidly worldwide; and the absolute rate of participation among students from underprivileged families increases in the expanded and diversified system. However, inequality remains a persistent issue as the most valuable degrees in prestigious universities are still disproportionately obtained by students from advantaged groups while disadvantaged students are often clustered in new postsecondary programmes at less p…
A Qualitative Illustration of the Operation of Secondary Effect of Social Stratification
This paper offers a qualitative analysis of decisions of 64 community-college students in seeking a transfer in Hong Kong. In weighing a number of educational options and then offers, with a similar level of desirability in some cases, in order to achieve their transfers, advantaged-class and disadvantaged-class respondents struggled with different logics of reasoning and negotiated anxiously with their changing structural realities. This qualita…
Cultural capital and habitus in the field of higher education
Referring to Bourdieu’s three-level analysis and trio concepts, the authors offer a third-level analysis of the academic and social adaptation of 32 rural students in four elite universities in Shanghai, China. Respondents with rural habitus and cultural capital had difficulties in adapting to the field of an elite university in an urban city and were disadvantaged in making themselves a competitive portfolio. But many respondents changed habitus…
Entitlement' and 'Legitimacy' as emotional capital
This paper seeks to take advantage of the concept of emotional capital to analyse how class is lived out through a critical educational failure by referring to the experiences of 64 community-college students in Hong Kong from a longitudinal qualitative study. Arguably an analysis of the emotions of middle-class and working-class respondents and their respective parents could enrich our conceptualization of emotional capital and theorization of i…
Community College Students in Hong Kong
Angels falling from grace? The rectification experiences of middle-class community-college students in Hong Kong
Against an expanded sector of higher education, inadequate empirical effort has been made to examine the experiences of middle-class students who fail to get straight into university rectify their situation. Such experiences, as well as their psychic/emotional aspects, are of increasing relevance to understanding the operation of class against a changing landscape of higher education and thus explaining the persistence of a class gap despite cont…
Is Hong Kong no Longer a Land of Opportunities after the 1997 Handover
A belief that Hong Kong is a land of opportunities for the talented and the hardworking makes many speculate that an increasing involvement of younger generations in politics in recent years results from their blocked social mobility. What remains unclear is whether new generations are indeed deprived of mobility opportunities in nowadays Hong Kong. We seek to address this issue empirically by analysing two datasets collected in 1989 and 2007. Si…
Self-explanation, self-evaluation, legitimation of social inequality
In order to understand the legitimation of social inequality, it is necessary to understand not only what legitimising ideology is explicitly taught or implicitly conveyed at the institution of school, but also such institutional impacts on students failed by the system and thus disadvantaged in it: how far have they integrated legitimising ideology into their inner consciousness? Referring to the accounts of 52 community-college students in Hong…
Cognitive Structure of Social Mobility
Drawing on the mobility accounts of eighty-nine respondents who perceived themselves as socially mobile in post-war Hong Kong, I devise a typology of four biographies - normal, choice, special, and emotional biographies - to examine the cognitive structure of their accounts in order to make sense of moral sentiments of class. Three tentative conclusions are drawn. First, class feelings could be seen as better class markers than self-reported clas…
Overlooked insights from mobility instances? Reconsider our understanding of mobility processes
The Civic Education Project in Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova
The reliance of development NGOs on donor funding exposes them to the danger of formulating programmes geared to meeting the needs of the donors, rather than those of local beneficiaries. In the worst-case scenario, NGOs may exacerbate existing problems through interventions that reinforce their own dominance and undermine local empowerment. This article examines some of the practices of one international NGO which worked in the field of higher e…
Social Mobility and Social Inequality
In following the lead of Savage and his associates, who unpack the ambivalent nature of class identities, this paper draws on narratives of seventy-three middle-class respondents in post-war Hong Kong to illustrate that pacifying effects of social mobility could operate through a sense of ambivalence. Moving into a newly emerging middle class, my respondents applied such class label to themselves; recognising their relocation, the respondents att…
How Middle-Class Parents Help their Children Obtain an Advantaged Qualification
It is well-documented for most industrial-capitalist societies that despite educational expansion, class differentials in educational attainment persist. This paper seeks to understand mechanisms maintaining the class differentials by examining how two groups of middle-class parents - teachers and managers - help their children obtain an advantaged qualification. Qualitative data were collected in Hong Kong between 1996 and 1997. Given a changing…
Inequality within the Family
While members of the same family are assumed to share similar mobility chances, this paper seeks to answer the following puzzle: why do only some children of the same family attain a level of education considered to be socially desirable whereas their siblings do not? The essence of an answer lies in the fact that the same parents could play rather dissimilar roles in the education of their different children. Using part of qualitative data colle…
Class and the Educational Attainment of Siblings
A unified middle class or two middle classes? A comparison of career strategies and intergenerational mobility strategies between teachers and managers in contemporary Hong Kong1
A debate over whether the 'service class' is a unitary middle class or is divided between professionals and managers remains unsettled. This qualitative mobility study seeks to elucidate mobility processes of how professional and managerial groups secure their advantages throughout their working lives and over generations. Using data on contemporary Hong Kong, this paper compares the career strategies and intergenerational mobility strategies of …
Is Hong Kong no Longer a Land of Opportunities after the 1997 Handover
A belief that Hong Kong is a land of opportunities for the talented and the hardworking makes many speculate that an increasing involvement of younger generations in politics in recent years results from their blocked social mobility. What remains unclear is whether new generations are indeed deprived of mobility opportunities in nowadays Hong Kong. We seek to address this issue empirically by analysing two datasets collected in 1989 and 2007. Si…
A unified middle class or two middle classes? A comparison of career strategies and intergenerational mobility strategies between teachers and managers in contemporary Hong Kong1
A debate over whether the 'service class' is a unitary middle class or is divided between professionals and managers remains unsettled. This qualitative mobility study seeks to elucidate mobility processes of how professional and managerial groups secure their advantages throughout their working lives and over generations. Using data on contemporary Hong Kong, this paper compares the career strategies and intergenerational mobility strategies of …
Class and the Educational Attainment of Siblings
Social Mobility and Social Inequality
In following the lead of Savage and his associates, who unpack the ambivalent nature of class identities, this paper draws on narratives of seventy-three middle-class respondents in post-war Hong Kong to illustrate that pacifying effects of social mobility could operate through a sense of ambivalence. Moving into a newly emerging middle class, my respondents applied such class label to themselves; recognising their relocation, the respondents att…
How Middle-Class Parents Help their Children Obtain an Advantaged Qualification
It is well-documented for most industrial-capitalist societies that despite educational expansion, class differentials in educational attainment persist. This paper seeks to understand mechanisms maintaining the class differentials by examining how two groups of middle-class parents - teachers and managers - help their children obtain an advantaged qualification. Qualitative data were collected in Hong Kong between 1996 and 1997. Given a changing…
Entitlement' and 'Legitimacy' as emotional capital
This paper seeks to take advantage of the concept of emotional capital to analyse how class is lived out through a critical educational failure by referring to the experiences of 64 community-college students in Hong Kong from a longitudinal qualitative study. Arguably an analysis of the emotions of middle-class and working-class respondents and their respective parents could enrich our conceptualization of emotional capital and theorization of i…
Angels falling from grace? The rectification experiences of middle-class community-college students in Hong Kong
Against an expanded sector of higher education, inadequate empirical effort has been made to examine the experiences of middle-class students who fail to get straight into university rectify their situation. Such experiences, as well as their psychic/emotional aspects, are of increasing relevance to understanding the operation of class against a changing landscape of higher education and thus explaining the persistence of a class gap despite cont…
Cognitive Structure of Social Mobility
Drawing on the mobility accounts of eighty-nine respondents who perceived themselves as socially mobile in post-war Hong Kong, I devise a typology of four biographies - normal, choice, special, and emotional biographies - to examine the cognitive structure of their accounts in order to make sense of moral sentiments of class. Three tentative conclusions are drawn. First, class feelings could be seen as better class markers than self-reported clas…
Inequality within the Family
While members of the same family are assumed to share similar mobility chances, this paper seeks to answer the following puzzle: why do only some children of the same family attain a level of education considered to be socially desirable whereas their siblings do not? The essence of an answer lies in the fact that the same parents could play rather dissimilar roles in the education of their different children. Using part of qualitative data colle…
A unified middle class or two middle classes? A comparison of career strategies and intergenerational mobility strategies between teachers and managers in contemporary Hong Kong1
A debate over whether the 'service class' is a unitary middle class or is divided between professionals and managers remains unsettled. This qualitative mobility study seeks to elucidate mobility processes of how professional and managerial groups secure their advantages throughout their working lives and over generations. Using data on contemporary Hong Kong, this paper compares the career strategies and intergenerational mobility strategies of …
Class and the Educational Attainment of Siblings
Inequality within the Family
While members of the same family are assumed to share similar mobility chances, this paper seeks to answer the following puzzle: why do only some children of the same family attain a level of education considered to be socially desirable whereas their siblings do not? The essence of an answer lies in the fact that the same parents could play rather dissimilar roles in the education of their different children. Using part of qualitative data colle…
How Middle-Class Parents Help their Children Obtain an Advantaged Qualification
It is well-documented for most industrial-capitalist societies that despite educational expansion, class differentials in educational attainment persist. This paper seeks to understand mechanisms maintaining the class differentials by examining how two groups of middle-class parents - teachers and managers - help their children obtain an advantaged qualification. Qualitative data were collected in Hong Kong between 1996 and 1997. Given a changing…
Overlooked insights from mobility instances? Reconsider our understanding of mobility processes
The Civic Education Project in Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova
The reliance of development NGOs on donor funding exposes them to the danger of formulating programmes geared to meeting the needs of the donors, rather than those of local beneficiaries. In the worst-case scenario, NGOs may exacerbate existing problems through interventions that reinforce their own dominance and undermine local empowerment. This article examines some of the practices of one international NGO which worked in the field of higher e…
Social Mobility and Social Inequality
In following the lead of Savage and his associates, who unpack the ambivalent nature of class identities, this paper draws on narratives of seventy-three middle-class respondents in post-war Hong Kong to illustrate that pacifying effects of social mobility could operate through a sense of ambivalence. Moving into a newly emerging middle class, my respondents applied such class label to themselves; recognising their relocation, the respondents att…
Cognitive Structure of Social Mobility
Drawing on the mobility accounts of eighty-nine respondents who perceived themselves as socially mobile in post-war Hong Kong, I devise a typology of four biographies - normal, choice, special, and emotional biographies - to examine the cognitive structure of their accounts in order to make sense of moral sentiments of class. Three tentative conclusions are drawn. First, class feelings could be seen as better class markers than self-reported clas…
Self-explanation, self-evaluation, legitimation of social inequality
In order to understand the legitimation of social inequality, it is necessary to understand not only what legitimising ideology is explicitly taught or implicitly conveyed at the institution of school, but also such institutional impacts on students failed by the system and thus disadvantaged in it: how far have they integrated legitimising ideology into their inner consciousness? Referring to the accounts of 52 community-college students in Hong…
Is Hong Kong no Longer a Land of Opportunities after the 1997 Handover
A belief that Hong Kong is a land of opportunities for the talented and the hardworking makes many speculate that an increasing involvement of younger generations in politics in recent years results from their blocked social mobility. What remains unclear is whether new generations are indeed deprived of mobility opportunities in nowadays Hong Kong. We seek to address this issue empirically by analysing two datasets collected in 1989 and 2007. Si…
Angels falling from grace? The rectification experiences of middle-class community-college students in Hong Kong
Against an expanded sector of higher education, inadequate empirical effort has been made to examine the experiences of middle-class students who fail to get straight into university rectify their situation. Such experiences, as well as their psychic/emotional aspects, are of increasing relevance to understanding the operation of class against a changing landscape of higher education and thus explaining the persistence of a class gap despite cont…
Community College Students in Hong Kong
Cultural capital and habitus in the field of higher education
Referring to Bourdieu’s three-level analysis and trio concepts, the authors offer a third-level analysis of the academic and social adaptation of 32 rural students in four elite universities in Shanghai, China. Respondents with rural habitus and cultural capital had difficulties in adapting to the field of an elite university in an urban city and were disadvantaged in making themselves a competitive portfolio. But many respondents changed habitus…
Entitlement' and 'Legitimacy' as emotional capital
This paper seeks to take advantage of the concept of emotional capital to analyse how class is lived out through a critical educational failure by referring to the experiences of 64 community-college students in Hong Kong from a longitudinal qualitative study. Arguably an analysis of the emotions of middle-class and working-class respondents and their respective parents could enrich our conceptualization of emotional capital and theorization of i…
A Qualitative Illustration of the Operation of Secondary Effect of Social Stratification
This paper offers a qualitative analysis of decisions of 64 community-college students in seeking a transfer in Hong Kong. In weighing a number of educational options and then offers, with a similar level of desirability in some cases, in order to achieve their transfers, advantaged-class and disadvantaged-class respondents struggled with different logics of reasoning and negotiated anxiously with their changing structural realities. This qualita…
Access to top universities through alternative pathways
Higher education has expanded rapidly worldwide; and the absolute rate of participation among students from underprivileged families increases in the expanded and diversified system. However, inequality remains a persistent issue as the most valuable degrees in prestigious universities are still disproportionately obtained by students from advantaged groups while disadvantaged students are often clustered in new postsecondary programmes at less p…
Political science (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Social science (11 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Social class (8 works) · Social mobility (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies (7 works) · Economic growth (6 works)