Abstract
While Gaokao, the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), has been extensively discussed outside the Chinese academic circle, the retake policy of the test has not received much attention. Moreover, Gaokao research in China has predominantly examined the effectiveness of the retake decision in relation to students’ demographic characteristics. Qualitative research that examines the impact of the Gaokao retake policy on the lives of test-takers, specifically on current-year as well as retake students, is rare. The present study aimed to fill this research gap by investigating the social impact of the Gaokao retake policy. Specifically, we examine how the impact is manifested as the discursive process of ‘self’ and ‘othering’ by current-year and retake students. We associate Gaokao retake with global educational change to illustrate how neoliberalism in Chinese education has normalised competition, leading current-year and retake students to the process of ‘othering’ in which self is elevated over the other, perpetuating social divisions between them. We also foreground the question of socioeconomic inequality between the two groups as it plays out in Gaokao as a national, large-scale assessment influenced by neoliberalism.