How are Chinese Students Ideologically Divided? A Survey of Chinese College Students’ Political Self-Identification

Students have always played an important role in defining the politics of China, and their ideological orientation shapes the nature of student politics. Through a survey of students from six elite universities, this study explores the outlook of Chinese youth’s political identities and analyzes the factors conditioning their identity formation. The results reveal three trends. First, the majority of these college students either claim themselves to be apolitical or to be liberals. Second, among various channels of political (re)socialization, family plays a weak role, while mass media has a strong influence on students’ political orientation. Peking University, the base for nurturing liberals in the 1990s, has now yielded this role to universities specializing in economics and finance, thus suggesting the impact of economic liberalism since the 1990s. Third, gender, education level, academic major, family income, and Communist Party membership are all good indicators of students’ political identities. These results are interpreted in the context of student movements and intellectual transition in China over the past four decades.

中国学生的意识形态分化：中国大学生政治自我认同的调查

学生一直在界定中国政治中扮演着重要的角色，他们的意识形态定位也塑造着学生政治的属性。通过对六个精英大学学生的调查，本研究探讨了中国青年政治认同的概观，分析了影响他们认同形成的因素。调查结果显示出三种趋势。首先，这些大学生中大多数人宣称自己要么不关心政治，要么就是自由主义者。第二，在各种政治（再）社会化的渠道中，家庭起到微弱的作用，而大众媒体对学生的政治认同却发挥着重大影响。北京大学九十年代曾是培养自由主义者的大本营，现在却将此重任拱手相让给那些专业的经济和金融类大学；这表明九十年代以来经济自由主义的影响之重大。第三，性别、教育、专业、家庭收入以及是否中共党员全都是学生政治认同的很好的指标。本文将这些调查结果置于过去四十年里中国的学生运动和知识分子变迁的大背景中进行了阐释。

Translated from English by Li Guo