Beyond Space: Spatial (Re)Production and Middle-Class Remaking Driven by Jiaoyufication in Nanjing City, China

Abstract

An extension of gentrification, jiaoyufication–urban change driven by a desire for high-quality education–is not only displacing previous lower-class residents, but also replacing earlier jiaoyufiers with newcomers, turning formerly blue-collar neighbourhoods into white-collar ones. New middle-class communities are emerging as spatially limited school catchment zones attract social groups who occupy these spaces in an attempt to facilitate social mobility or consolidate social status, causing tension between them. Consequently, jiaoyufication has narrowed down opportunities for intergenerational social mobility and exacerbated social polarization, gradually replacing traditional social hierarchies with intergenerational neoliberal stratification.