Highlighting And Differentiating: The Social Class Consciousness Of College Students

Nowadays, since China is in a time in which its social division and new stratum structure gradually come into being, stratum consciousness correspondingly becomes attracts the academics and the mass. Based on the theory of social stratification, the theory of man’s socialization and the theory of cultural reproduction, this research presupposes that college students are aware of the social reality that people are in different stratum, and different college students have different social stratum consciousness. By taking seven universities in Nanjing as examples, this research collects data through distributing questionnaires to1061college students, and then analyzes college students’ social stratum consciousness and its division to test the hypotheses.In this paper, college students’ social stratum consciousness are divided into four parts covering their basic cognition of social stratum, awareness of inequality among stratum, attitudes towards several categories of social groups and awareness of stratum’s dynamic nature and a general description to each of them and their relevance with their family’s stratum background and universities are explored. By comparing differences between college students’ social stratum consciousness, this paper confirms its previous presupposition and draws its conclusion which is as follows: college students have already understood social division. College students’ social stratum consciousness varies according to their stratum background. College students’ reception of divided stratum is related to their parents’ education background and family incomes. College students’ subjective family stratum category mainly depends on their stratum background. College students’ satisfaction with the status of their family stratum is restrained by stratum background. College students with low family stratum background pay much attention to unreasonable discrepancy between incomes. Reasons for social inequality given by college students are influenced by their families’ possession of social resources. College students’ valuation of social groups with different social status is related to their stratum background. College students coming from low stratum aspire for more changes in their stratum. Though they are optimistic about their opportunities for making changes, they do not expect much of their future stratum. College students who study in famous universities are more likely to receive the divided stratum. Compared with college students of common universities, those of famous universities think their family belong to a lower stratum and have a more open mind in making friends. College students of famous universities believe that the discrepancy between incomes is more unreasonable. By contrast, college students’ of common universities believe that the way universities treat students coming from different stratum is more unfair. Compared with college students of common universities, those of famous universities give more negative evaluation of social groups living at the bottom of stratum but give more positive evaluation of the rich.In conclusion:college students’ stratum consciousness is related to their families’ stratum and universities in which they study. College students have already divided upon stratum consciousness. And this division corresponds to division of social stratum. In this sense, it can be regarded as the reproduction of social consciousness. Faced with division between students, education reform is necessary so as to cultivate students’ notion of democracy and their awareness and capability of participating social affairs.