Conference Agenda

Children’s peer relations increasingly unfold across hybrid spaces where digitally mediated interactions and school-day encounters are tightly interwoven. In this paper, I do not assume that ‘online’ and ‘offline’ are separate contexts; rather, I treat them as entangled conditions through which peer relations are made and unmade. The paper offers a methodological and ethical contribution: it asks how a researcher can make hybrid peer dynamics visible without turning them into discrete “incidents,” and without amplifying harm.

To do so, I develop a working analytic vocabulary for tracing what I call digital–material spillovers: patterned ways in which digitally mediated peer dynamics reverberate into the material and affective organisation of everyday school life (e.g., subtle regroupings, shifting proximities, avoidance, silence, heightened vigilance). This is an analytic concept proposed in the paper, grounded in my fieldwork. Theoretically, I position my work alongside Nordic relational and critical approaches to bullying that foreground group dynamics and institutional/moral orders (e.g., Horton, 2011, 2018; Søndergaard, 2012, 2018). Methodologically, I draw on post-qualitative and diffractive discussions that challenge prescriptive method and treat writing/analysis as part of inquiry (e.g., Murris & Bozalek, 2019; Springgay & Truman, 2017; St. Pierre, 2018). These bodies of work inform how I think with theory; they are not presented as empirical claims about my field site.

Research questions:

1) What kinds of ethnographic traces make hybrid peer dynamics (digital–material spillovers) perceptible in everyday school life?

2) How do children’s friendship norms and concerns about consequences shape what becomes sayable, to whom, and when?

3) What ethical dilemmas emerge when children seek adult proximity, support, or confidentiality in the middle of peer tensions?

Empirically, the paper draws on fieldnotes and brief child-led conversations that illuminate the methodological problem of “seeing without over-exposing.” In my fieldnotes, digitally mediated peer tensions often become noticeable first as micro-changes: shifts in who aligns with whom in classroom tasks, who avoids whom, and how participation becomes constrained or enabled. My fieldnotes also document how group messaging practices can become entangled with collective responsibilities (e.g., planning or coordinating shared tasks), and how disputes about decisions, permissions, or membership can reverberate into classroom interaction patterns rather than appearing as a single event. Across these sequences, I analyse how the researcher’s presence becomes part of the ethical landscape, especially when children request adult proximity or support.

A large number of international studies have shown that education plays a significant role in poverty reduction, enhancing individual capabilities, human capital, and social mobility, and promoting economic and social development (UNESCO, 2020). Against this global context, China has established education poverty alleviation as an important component of its national poverty reduction strategy and achieved the complete elimination of absolute poverty in 2020 (China's MFA, 2023). Although there has been an increasing number of studies on China's education poverty alleviation policies in recent years, studies that adopt a social group perspective and focus on policy satisfaction are still relatively insufficient (Chen, 2019). This study takes Sichuan Province of China as a case and focuses on the implementation of education poverty alleviation policies. Sichuan Province has a large population, complex terrain, uneven regional development, and includes multiple national-level contiguous poverty-stricken areas. It has long been a key area for poverty alleviation work in China (The People's Government of Sichuan Province, 2015). Although Sichuan has achieved the national poverty alleviation goal simultaneously with the rest of the country, poverty alleviation requires continuous policy evaluation to prevent the risk of relapse and enhance long-term policy effectiveness. In this context, examining the effects of education poverty alleviation policy implementation from the perspective of public satisfaction has potential research significance.

The overall objective of this study is to evaluate the outcomes of education poverty alleviation policies in Sichuan Province from a social group perspective, with a particular focus on public awareness and satisfaction with these policies. By shifting the analytical focus from policy texts and macro indicators to the actual experiences of social groups, this study aims to bridge the research gap between policy design goals and public experiences. To achieve this objective, the study raises the following three research questions: (1) During the period from 2016 to 2020, which education poverty alleviation policies and specific measures were implemented in Sichuan? (2) How did the social groups in Sichuan perceive and evaluate these education poverty alleviation policies? (3) What are the potential paths for enhancing the satisfaction with education poverty alleviation policies in the future?

At the theoretical level, this study adopts the basic needs theory and the human capital theory as the analytical framework. The basic needs theory regards education as a fundamental need for human development, emphasizing the responsibility of the government in ensuring educational equity and equal opportunities (UNESCO, 2020). From this perspective, educational poverty alleviation is not only an economic means but also a necessary condition for realizing social rights and human development (Nakamura, 2020). The human capital theory understands education as a long-term investment, highlighting the role of education in enhancing individual productivity, increasing income, and promoting macroeconomic growth, and demonstrating the rationality of government intervention and public education investment (Schultz, 1960). By integrating these two theories, this study conceptualises the significance of educational poverty alleviation policy implementation from the dual perspectives of social equity and economic efficiency.