Paper short abstract:

This ethnographic research investigates the lived experiences of low-income teenage immigrant students coming to Hong Kong from less affluent places, predominantly rural mainland China and South Asia, as they adapt to life and education in Hong Kong.

Paper long abstract:

Based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in four secondary schools, this research investigates the lived experiences of low-income teenage immigrant students coming to Hong Kong from less affluent places, predominantly rural mainland China and South Asia, as they adapt to life and education in Hong Kong. This paper discusses the migration trajectories and schooling experiences of these young immigrants to explore how they have internalized and shouldered the family expectations for their upward social mobility through access to the perceived better education in Hong Kong; how they navigate the unfamiliar education system and curriculum; and how they negotiate the disparities between idealized aspirations and constraints in reality. By looking at the institutional forces and the discursive and symbolic structures that circumscribe their lived experiences, I seek to illuminate the ideologies of boundary-crossing mobility and social mobility that are shaping the immigrant students.