Speaking the Same Academic Language: Reflections on the Sixth Beijing Normal University Sociology of Education Forum

With the support of the PGR Seed Corn Fund from the Centre for Childhoods and Social Justice at the University of Bristol, I was honoured to attend the Sixth Beijing Normal University Sociology of Education Forum. This opportunity was particularly meaningful for me, not only because it allowed me to present work from my PhD research, but also because it enabled me to engage with Chinese-speaking scholars and audiences whose academic, social, and educational experiences are closely connected to the context of my study.

It has been five years since I came to the UK for postgraduate study. During this time, most of the academic environments in which I have presented and discussed my research have been shaped largely by Western scholarly traditions, institutional settings, and audiences. Although my PhD fieldwork was conducted in China, where I spent five months speaking with mothers, tutors, and educational practitioners, I have had relatively few opportunities to test my emerging arguments with audiences based in China. As my thesis focuses on urban Chinese middle-class mothering, extra-curricular activities, educational anxiety, and uneven local opportunity structures, I had often wondered how my analysis would be received by scholars and students who live within, study, and experience these social conditions more directly.

This question stayed with me as I arrived at the forum. Although I am originally from China, this was my first time attending a Chinese-speaking academic conference. The experience felt unfamiliar in ways I had not fully expected. I had presented my work at the British Sociological Association Annual Conference the previous week, and I found myself inevitably comparing the two settings. The structure, atmosphere, conference etiquette, and forms of interaction were noticeably different from the conferences I had attended in the UK. For example, during the opening keynote session, the front rows were reserved for invited speakers and senior academics, with name cards showing both their names and institutional affiliations. Students and uninvited researchers usually sat further back in the room. These arrangements made visible a more formal academic hierarchy than the one I had become accustomed to in UK-based conferences.

At first, this difference made me feel slightly unsettled. I was physically and intellectually returning to a Chinese academic space, but at the same time I felt that I was entering it from a position shaped by several years of study in the UK. The conference setting reminded me that academic belonging is not automatic. It is shaped by institutional cultures, forms of interaction, and the expectations through which we learn how to speak, listen, and position ourselves as researchers.

During the panel, I presented a paper titled “Uneven Urban Development and Middle-Class Mothering: Place-Based Educational Strategies in Shanghai and Harbin”. The paper draws on my PhD dissertation and examines how mothering practices are shaped by place-specific structures. By comparing Shanghai and Harbin, I explore how local educational markets, institutional arrangements, and uneven urban development shape the ways in which mothers understand children’s extra-curricular activities and make decisions about educational investment.

During the discussion, I began to feel that my earlier sense of unfamiliarity was being replaced by a strong sense of intellectual connection. The audience showed interest in my research questions, my comparison between Shanghai and Harbin, and the theoretical framework I used to understand place-based educational strategies. Despite of the differences mentioned above, we were asking related questions, using overlapping conceptual vocabularies, and trying to understand the social conditions that shape children’s lives, parents’ practices, and educational inequalities. This was the moment when I felt a strong sense of academic belonging. It reminded me that an academic community is not only built through institutional affiliation, but also through the experience of “speaking the same language” intellectually.

The forum also made me reflect more deeply on the social significance of sociology of education. I was struck by the number of undergraduate students who attended the forum. Based on the conversation I had with one undergraduate student, in a context of heightened social uncertainty in China, many students are trying to understand their educational trajectories, family backgrounds, and future possibilities. The student told me how the research presented at the forum had inspired them and helped them reflect on their own experiences. This conversation stayed with me. It reminded me that our research can offer more than analysis. It can also provide language, recognition, and critical understanding for those who are living through the very inequalities and uncertainties we study.

For me, this funded opportunity was therefore much more than a conference trip. It allowed me to present my work to an audience closely connected to my research context, to receive valuable intellectual feedback, and to experience a renewed sense of academic belonging. I am thus very grateful to the Centre for Childhoods and Social Justice for supporting this opportunity. The forum strengthened my confidence that academic work can travel across national, linguistic, and institutional settings. It also reminded me that the questions we ask as researchers can matter beyond academia, especially when they help illuminate the lived experiences of children, parents, and young people in contemporary societies.