ABSTRACT
Some children from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds eventually break the reproduction spell and achieve upward social mobility through education. Their presence in higher education serves as the evidence of meritocracy. This chapter, based on a study of rural students who managed to go to a top university against all the odds, unpacks the complexity of social mobility and unravels the myth of meritocracy by exploring their “secret” of academic success. Most rural achievers in this study were found to come from the least disadvantaged strata of the most disadvantaged classes. Relatively high levels of family economic capital in their rural community make the bumpy educational road passable. Parental support, personal academic excellence, and teachers’ favouritism in early years interact, developing into scholastic dispositions of self-improvement. Although the burden of academic success is quite heavy, it is an aversion to their rural identity and destiny. However, without structural change, social mobility by itself cannot fully tackle educational inequality.
