Entrepreneurs in Credential Market: The Ideology, Self-identity and Life Value of Students in an Elite University

The historical development of capitalism has determined that middle class rely upon meritocracy-governed education to maintain self-reproduction. With the rise of consumerism-driven capitalism and the accompanying new form of elitism and polarizing economy, middle class suffers more severe pressure on self-reproduction through accumulating educational symbolic capital through credential market. Although abundant research has been conducted into middle class parents’ ideology and actions under such circumstance, the social agency of middle-class students has not received adequate attention. Basing on Bourdieu’s work, the current study conceptualized credential market as a social space ruled by the habitus of meritocratic value hierarchy and investigated how students attending elite university construct self-identity within credential market and how they perceive the social-reproductive mechanism realized by the symbolic economy within credential market. Qualitative data collected through semi-structured interview indicated that instead of being passive consumers disciplined by meritocratic value hierarchy, respondents formed the identity of rational entrepreneurs whose primary goal is utilizing educational symbolic capital to realize internal authentic passion, holding non-consumerism attitude toward higher education and instrumentalism attitude toward credential market. However, despite their deep insight into the symbolic economy within credential market and critical thinking against meritocracy and capitalism, respondents still firmly held individualistic value which limits their capacity to make substantial, revolutionary changes