ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by setting out some basic information about who the participants in the project were and then move on to discussing their family backgrounds and situations. In general in China the majority of people experience education at an extremely local level. One of the most distinctive aspects of the College situation, therefore, was the level of diversity in its community. The vast majority of participants come from homes of parents who had at least finished secondary education. The chapter discusses, students at state universities have shared the highly conforming process of high school education as a single peer group, in sharp contrast to the majority of students who elect to go to Harmony. The overall make-up of the study population sets the scene for the degree to which the student population from Harmony College was novel in the Chinese educational context.
