In this paper, I made a historical and philosophical reflection on the social scientific categorization of "rural children" (nongcun ertong) in contemporary Chinese discourses of educational equality. The empowerment discourse about them as an educationally marginalized group based on scientific inquiry into their problems reflects a new understanding and management of social justice and progress envisioned by scientific description of groups of people. In historicizing "naming" as a crucial and changing practice in Confucian moral-political governance, Maoist "class line" (jiejiluxian) and post-Maoist scientism, I propose to challenge the de-ideologicalization (quyishixingtaihua) of social scientific categories as natural representations of people, and to explore how new hierarchies are produced in the scientific, humanitarian and capitalist turn of post-socialist China.