Transitioning from secondary vocational school to university: A case study of first-year students from two Chinese universities

The articulation between Secondary Vocational School(SVS) and college, in China, is a relatively new reform, hoping to unlock the dead end of Vocational Education and Training(VET). Based on fieldwork conducted in two universities in Jiangsu Province in 2018–2019, this article reports on college experience for articulated students with a VET background. The findings demonstrate that both positive and negative consequences of social skills exist at college for those students. Prior vocational school experience was shown to have an academic shock on students who were also have a complex mentality as they easily became aware of their distinctive identity as opposed to that of their peers. Further, although better-performing students demonstrated academic resilience, they nevertheless felt uncertain about transitional status and eager to redeem themselves through academic ambition, whereas more poorly-performing students had an anxiety about academia that made them prey to a pattern of struggling and giving up. Finally, the policy implications of the findings are also discussed.