This book examines how the “processes of individualization in contemporary Chinese society are shaping educational practices as well as the lives of students and teachers” (p. 3). Drawing on long-term fieldwork in a rural boarding school in Zhejiang Province, Hansen argues that the younger generation in China is experiencing what she terms “authoritarian individualization,” through which “the state consciously, through its education system, promotes the rise of the individual in some spheres while holding it back in others, forcing the individual to experiment with appropriate means to simultaneously make ‘a life of one's own’ and adhere to political authorities” (p. 16). Hansen develops this argument by focusing on five themes: individual space, textbooks, election of cadres for the student association, pep rallies and aspirations.

A unique feature of Hansen's field site is that many students at the boarding school come from migrant-worker families, and live in boarding homes rather than on-campus dormitories. This is because boarding homes have relatively better facilities than school dormitories, and also because parents assume that owners of boarding homes, who are often (retired) teachers, can help monitor and discipline their children while at the same time offering assistance with homework. In her first chapter, Hansen shows that, although many students resist this type of monitoring, they do so in a covert manner.

In chapter two, Hansen focuses on school curriculum and contents of textbooks. Discussing two examples taken from a literary textbook, which teach students the virtues of working hard, Hansen points out that textbooks provide “an entrance to understanding the kind of individuals the political authorities in principle would like to make of the coming generation of adult citizens, and therefore also which flaws the authorities find – and attempt to correct – in the current population” (p. 93).

Chapters three and four capture two moments of school life: election of cadres for the student association, and pep rallies before the university entry exam. The politics of election and peer governing reveal the complexity of “controlled rise” (p. 93) of Chinese individuals. Though the election campaign depends on the candidates' charismatic personality and their popularity among fellow students, the actual results of the election are controlled by school authorities. Even during the campaign, teachers were keen to correct and guide students, so as to present an idealized image of student cadre, which fits into the school authorities' rather than ordinary students' imaginations and expectations. On the other hand, whereas the election of student cadres uncovered how authoritative power affects a democratic drill among students, the pep rallies organised by the school were a concerted attempt to filial piety and other cornerstones of moral discourse to motivate students. Rallies consisted of a lecture given by a private company, and were well received by these rural students. Hansen vividly depicts how the professional lecturer used jokes as a warm-up, and encouraged students to hug teachers and say “I love you” to parents via phone calls during the pep rallies. Hansen argues that the pep rallies represent “a convenient and politically acceptable form of the promotion of the individual as a striving, innovative, filial, responsible person who leaves authorities and power relations unquestioned and refrains from analyzing him or herself in a broader social context” (p. 150).

Chapter five looks at individual aspirations, dreams and generational differences. The analysis relies on a teachers' perspective and on how teachers see students' bold and divergent behaviours like holding hands or kissing in public. Also, teachers in the rural boarding school position themselves between political correctness, individualized aspirations and everyday practice within the school setting. They are responsible for guiding students to internalize “the individual's responsibility to remain loyal to political authorities” (p. 172), but they also have to accept the challenges of social changes which demand that individuals actively develop their own possible selves within the broader political framework.

Educating the Chinese Individual is an ethnographically rich and stimulating study. It enriches our knowledge about a relatively understudied group – rural youth and young teachers – in a marginal setting (a boarding school). It challenges some common assumptions of the changing landscape of school education and everyday cultural practice of the younger generations in post-socialist China. Nonetheless, it would have been beneficial to the reader if Hansen had depicted more “moments” of school life like the election and pep rallies, thereby providing further contextualization for her core argument and helping readers get a better grasp of the manifestations of power relations, contested individualization, and uncertain desires within everyday school life. This book will attract a wide readership in educational studies, but will also appeal to audiences in sociology and anthropology who are interested in social change and youth culture in contemporary China.