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group to the whole
Chinese social media. The article tells the story of a student named Zhao Wei from a rural place in Sichuan Province. Zhao Wei studied hard and believed he captured the opportunity to leave the countryside by entering a 211 university. reIn his senior year, he decided to take the postgraduate entrance exam and switch major to computer science. Under tremendous pressure and his parents' unrealistic expectation, he failed the exam and became deeply depressed. He could not find a job in computer science because he did not have a related degree, nor did he want to work on the building site as his father's wish. His parents believe he studied too much and became a nerd. While his parents could not understand what he had been going through, he could not settle in the big city, nor could he return to the countryside. In December, 2020, an application was submitted to China National Intellectural Property Administration to register "small-town swot" as a trademark.
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started to call themselves "small town swots". Currently, there are 729 posts in "985 Waste
Introduction Plan" that mentioned the term "small-town swot". In the post "What is the way out for a small-town swot? Updated my thoughts on the social context (小镇做题家的出路是什么？更新了一下关于时代背景的想法)" posted on May 20, 2020, the poster summarized the discussions in the group and concluded that small-town swots mainly compose of students of two situations. The first group of small-town swots enters the majors with employment difficulties such as chemistry and material because they had limited information about an industry's prospects and long-term planning abilities; the second group of small-town swots studies in hot majors such as finance, but they cannot find a job in the field due to a lack of connections and resources.
20:
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commented that youth from rural areas face invisible barriers such as poor levels of foreign language and less creativity in scientific research. A lack of connection and information resources also troubles the small-town swots in job hunting. The
Economist article tells the story of Wang Jianyu, a physics whizz who studied finance at university. After seeing his classmates gain internships at major financial companies using their parents' connections, he "truly understood the gap" between himself and his urban peers. He had to switch to computer science to get a job offer.
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have participated and contributed to China's development over the past four decades" and "such vitality in social mobility should be encouraged rather than mocked." The
Guangming Daily, a national Chinese daily newspaper published an article titled "Hold confidence in your hands, small-town swots!" The article stated, "the stage of graduation and entering the workplace is one of the most intense stages when young people's ideals and reality collide". It encourages small-town swots to repack their bags, keeps their feet on the ground, and set off again.
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study that the students from the poorest fifth of counties are seven times less likely than their urban peers to enter a university and 14 times less likely to attend an elite school. Based on the finding of the
Stanford Rural Education Action Program, more than 70% of urban students can be admitted to a college compared to less than 5% of rural students. Moreover, according to Li et al., rural youth are 11 times less likely to enter elite Project 211 colleges than urban students.
175:(丁真), a social media influencer who accepted a job offer from the local government that he has no outstanding personal quality and ability compares to his classmates. China Youth Daily commented that the small-town swots may feel jealous and angry to see they are not as successful as a good-looking influencer with a low degree of education, which is not a practical attitude.
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social resources, and social skills. They feel socially isolated, lost and confused after breaking out of the test-taking mode and leaving the "straightforward environment" of school. They often encounter obstacles or setbacks in further education or job hunting and fall into anxiety and confusion of self-doubt.
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Many national media of China expressed affirmative attitudes towards "small-town swots". In 2022, China Daily, a newspaper owned by the
Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party, published an article titled "'Small-town swot' is no mocking matter". The article states, "many small-town swots
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The
Economist is the only western media that responded to the debate on small-town swots. In the article, "Education in China is becoming increasingly unfair to the poor", the author mainly attributes the small-town swot phenomenon to China's education inequality. It quoted a student who earned the
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The earliest traceable post on Douban that mentioned small-town swot is titled "Majored in
Biology, Chemical, Environmental, Material with bottom grades, let's talk about my future (生化环材专业垫底成绩，一起来想想去处)". The article was published on May 12, 2020. It mentioned that recently, many group members
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Even if the underprivileged students are fortunate enough to enter an elite school, after graduation, their prospects are typically worse than those of wealthy and urban students. Qian Wang, a
Conjoint Professor at the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
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The
Economist pointed out that the small-town swot phenomenon reflects the education inequalities in China. It is believed that urban-rural division and social stratification are the major causes of education inequalities, which lead to the struggles of small-town swots. The Economist cited a 2015
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In June 2020, a Chinese self-media "True Story Project (真实故事计划)" published an article titled "Small-town swot: the trap of destiny of a Project 211 Student (小镇做题家：一个211高校学生的命运陷阱)". With more than 100,000 hits, the article expanded the popularity of the term "small-town swot" from within the Douban
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Project. With a belief that they will soon rise to the fore and achieve high on a broader stage, they soon realize that the halo they once had in small towns fades in college. Compares to their classmates who grew up in cities, they are behind in mindset, a vision of how the world really works,
103:. Group members share their similar disappointing experiences and sought resonance in the self-deprecating nickname "five (废物)", which is the homonym of "waste" in English. On the introduction page, the group states its purpose is to build a "university for fives: a new campus for the Project
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The first article on Chinese media about small-town swots, "Small-town swot: the trap of destiny of a Project 211 student（小镇做题家：一个211高校学生的命运陷阱）", attracted more than 100,000 hits when it was first released and triggered wide conversations about the phenomenon of "small-town swot".
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best score in the Chinese college entrance exam and who is also the son of diplomats, "all the top scorers now come from wealthy families...it is becoming very difficult for students from rural areas to get into good universities".
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In 2021, an article titled "Education in China is becoming increasingly unfair to the poor" published in The Economist first translated the term "xiaozhen zuotijia" into English as "small-town swot".
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Waste Introduction Plan (985废物引进计划)" show more critical attitudes towards the small-town swot phenomenon based on their own experience of being misfits and having poor job prospects.
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who come to work in bigger cities but are disappointed to learn that despite their diligent studies and examination success in entering elite universities, they lack the
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graduates who dropped out of school or become unemployed, share failure stories and discuss how to get out of trouble".
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The supreme test-taking abilities enable the small-town swots to score high in the Chinese college entrance exam
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650:"Who is Ding Zhen, the Tibetan Boy Who Has Dominated the Chinese Internet for a Month? --- RADII"
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528:"Unequal Access to College in China: How Far Have Poor, Rural Students Been Left Behind?*"
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Li, Hongbin; Loyalka, Prashant; Rozelle, Scott; Wu, Binzhen; Xie, Jieyu (March 2015).
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The term " xiaozhenzuotijia (small-town swot)" first appeared in the group "Project
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Waste Introduction Plan (985废物引进计划)" established in May 2020 in
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and enter first-class universities, namely, the schools of the
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503:"China Focus | China's Rural Education Challenge"
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654:Stories from the center of China's youth culture
468:International Journal of Educational Development
171:Waste Introduction Plan (985废物引进计划)" criticized
575:"Rural students are being left behind in China"
462:Yang, Jun; Huang, Xiao; Liu, Xin (2014-07-01).
16:Chinese term linked to educational inequalities
464:"An analysis of education inequality in China"
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408:"小镇做题家的出路是什么？更新了一下关于时代背景的想法。"
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55:that describes students from
698:""做题家"们的怨气，为何要往丁真身上撒？ | 周末谈"
501:Yang, Wensupu (2019-02-04).
51:jiā) is a Chinese satirical
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573:Wang, Qiang (June 2014).
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626:"把自信紧握在手上，"小镇做题家" _光明网"
738:Social issues in China
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444:(in Chinese (China))
381:"生化环材专业垫底成绩，一起来想想去处"
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167:A post on "Project
61:county-level cities
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438:""小镇做题家"商标竟然也遭抢注"
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674:"看到丁真以后的感觉"
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538:: 185–207.
507:China Focus
195:Project 985
190:Project 211
163:Controversy
57:rural China
722:Categories
707:2022-11-29
702:s.cyol.com
683:2022-11-29
659:2022-11-29
635:2022-10-21
512:2022-10-07
448:2022-11-30
417:2022-11-27
390:2022-11-27
363:2022-11-29
339:2022-11-27
310:2022-11-27
247:2022-10-21
216:References
601:1476-4687
552:0305-7410
488:0738-0593
305:0013-0613
47:zhèn zuò
39:: 小镇做题家;
609:24965616
560:43935937
474:: 2–10.
205:Tangping
179:See also
65:cultural
126:Context
37:Chinese
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210:Douban
185:Gaokao
101:Douban
91:Origin
76:Gaokao
41:pinyin
556:S2CID
442:商业新知网
605:PMID
597:ISSN
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484:ISSN
436:缕聪.
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67:and
59:and
45:xiǎo
587:doi
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169:985
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109:211
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