Market reform, financial decentralization, and economic globalization have greatly accentuated China's social and regional inequalities. Education is expected to address these inequalities in a context of rapid social change, including the rise of an urban middle class, changed status of women, resurgence of ethnic identities, growing rural to urban migration, and lingering poverty in remote areas. But some argue that state policies have not sufficiently addressed inequitable practices, and that schools actually perpetuate and reproduce inequities, giving rise to a new system of social stratification driven more by market forces than socialist principles. Featuring all original, previously unpublished material, this volume examines this argument through analysis of selected aspects of educational stratification in China during the reform era. Chapters focus on the new urban middle class, poor rural residents, the migrant population in urban areas, rural girls, and ethnic minorities. The contributors are established scholars in the field, and they build a conceptual framework for assessing the degree to which China's educational reforms are inclusive, equitable, and integrative across social categories and groups.

This book uses Bourdieu’s sociological approach for research as a jumping-off point for framing our understandings and analyses of China and Chinese education. Three major themes—inequality, competition, and change—are explored across several theoretical and contextual bases. Bringing together top scholars in the field, the volume examines empirical studies that analyse social (im)mobility through education for students affected by the social divides of class, culture and rural/urban locations; teacher identity and the field of schooling in the current Chinese environment and going forward; and the university as an institution for the production of knowledge about education in the globalising academy. Offering insights into the historical and cultural context for China’s educational landscape, the contributions of this book revisit Bourdieusian concepts from a new empirical vantage point and bring together key studies that illuminate new pathways for the study of Chinese sociology of education.

This book investigates the changing opportunities in higher education for different social groups during China’s transition from the socialist regime to a market economy. The first part of the book provides a historical and comparative analysis of the development of the idea of meritocracy, since its early origins in China, and in more recent western thought. The second part then explores higher education reforms in China, the part played by supposedly meritocratic forms of selection, and the implications of these for social mobility. Based on original empirical data, Ye Liu sheds light on the socio-economic, gender and geographical inequalities behind the meritocratic façade of the Gaokao (高考). Liu argues that the Chinese philosophical belief in education-based meritocracy had a modern makeover in the Gaokao, and that this ideology induces working-class and rural students to believe in upward social mobility through higher education. When the Gaokao broke the promise of status improvement for rural students, they turned to the Chinese Communist Party and sought political connections by actively applying for its membership. This book reveals a bleak picture of visible and invisible inequality in terms of access to and participation in higher education in contemporary China. Written in an accessible style, it offers a valuable resource for researchers and non-specialist readers alike.

Fuelled by forces of globalization, China has gradually shifted from a centrally planned economy to a socialist market economy. Under the market economy China has experienced a massive and protracted economic boom. It is not clear however whether recent economic changes have brought the same miracle to education in China. Spotlight on China brings together established and emerging scholars from China and internationally in a dialogue about the profound social and economic transformation that has resulted from the market economy and its concomitant impact on education in China. The book covers a wide range of topics, including: Market economy and curriculum reform Teaching under China's market economy Changes in higher education Transitions from education to work Market economy and social inequality With its broad scope and fresh critical perspectives, this collection offers a most contemporary and comprehensive analysis of possibly the largest education system in the world. Lessons learned from the China experiment will inform researchers and educators about social and educational reforms in other countries which are undergoing similar fundamental changes. "Spotlight on China provides a state of the art picture: dynamic, partial, full of contradictions and tensions, and, as we speak, in movement and local reconfiguration." - Allan Luke, Queensland University of Technology "The book moves social science research on China's education another step forward by refining the balance between the viability of mainstream western concepts and the analytical possibilities of creating a new scholarship based on a deeper understanding of the historically grounded realities of contemporary Chinese education." - Gerard A. Postiglione, The University of Hong Kong"

Market reform, financial decentralization, and economic globalization have greatly accentuated China's social and regional inequalities. Education is expected to address these inequalities in a context of rapid social change, including the rise of an urban middle class, changed status of women, resurgence of ethnic identities, growing rural to urban migration, and lingering poverty in remote areas. But some argue that state policies have not sufficiently addressed inequitable practices, and that schools actually perpetuate and reproduce inequities, giving rise to a new system of social stratification driven more by market forces than socialist principles. Featuring all original, previously unpublished material, this volume examines this argument through analysis of selected aspects of educational stratification in China during the reform era. Chapters focus on the new urban middle class, poor rural residents, the migrant population in urban areas, rural girls, and ethnic minorities. The contributors are established scholars in the field, and they build a conceptual framework for assessing the degree to which China's educational reforms are inclusive, equitable, and integrative across social categories and groups.

Transformative market reforms in China since the late 1970s have improved living standards dramatically, but have also led to unprecedented economic inequality. During this period, China’s educational system was restructured to support economic development, with educational reforms occurring at a startling pace. Today, the educational system has diversified in structure, finance, and content; it has become more market-oriented; and it is serving an increasingly diverse student population. These changes carry significant consequences for China’s social mobility and inequality, and future economic prospects. In Education and Reform in China, leading scholars in the fields of education, sociology, demography, and economics investigate the evolution of educational access and attainment, educational quality, and the economic consequences of being educated. Education and Reform in China shows that economic advancement is increasingly tied to education in China, even as educational services are increasingly marketized. The volume investigates the varying impact of change for different social, ethnic, economic and geographic groups. Offering interdisciplinary views on the changing role of education in Chinese society, and on China’s educational achievements and policy challenges, this book will be an important resource for those interested in education, public policy, and development issues in China.

The introduction of market reforms has radically transformed China. Marketizing Social Policy in China examines the impact of a shift to market principles in the critical sector of social policy. The authors demonstrate how social policy reform has been driven by economic transformation, as profound structural change produced inevitable knock-on effects in people's livelihood. Marketization in social policy in turn creates new needs and raises issues that challenge commonly accepted notions of public-private responsibilities in a society undergoing rapid and deep social change.

The post-Mao period has witnessed rapid social and economic transformation in all walks of Chinese life – much of it fuelled by, or reflected in, changes to the country’s education system. This book analyses the development of that system since the abandonment of radical Maoism and the inauguration of ‘Reform and Opening’ in the late 1970s. The principal focus is on formal education in schools and conventional institutions of tertiary education, but there is also some discussion of preschools, vocational training, and learning in non-formal contexts. The book begins with a discussion of the historical and comparative context for evaluating China’s educational ‘achievements’, followed by an extensive discussion of the key transitions in education policymaking during the ‘Reform and Opening’ period. This informs the subsequent examination of changes affecting the different phases of education from preschool to tertiary level. There are also chapters dealing specifically with the financing and administration of schooling, curriculum development, the public examinations system, the teaching profession, the phenomenon of marketisation, and the ‘international dimension’ of Chinese education. The book concludes with an assessment of the social consequences of educational change in the post-Mao era and a critical discussion of the recent fashion in certain Western countries for hailing China as an educational model. The analysis is supported by a wealth of sources – primary and secondary, textual and statistical – and is informed by both authors’ wide-ranging experience of Chinese education. As the first monograph on China's educational development during the forty years of the post-Mao era, this book will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand the world’s largest education system. It will also be crucial reference for educational comparativists, and for scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds researching contemporary Chinese society.

A Companion to the Anthropology of Education presents a comprehensive and state-of-the-art overview of the field, exploring the social and cultural dimension of educational processes in both formal and nonformal settings. Explores theoretical and applied approaches to cultural practice in a diverse range of educational settings around the world, in both formal and non-formal contexts Includes contributions by leading educational anthropologists Integrates work from and on many different national systems of scholarship, including China, the United States, Africa, the Middle East, Colombia, Mexico, India, the United Kingdom, and Denmark Examines the consequences of history, cultural diversity, language policies, governmental mandates, inequality, and literacy for everyday educational processes

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the People's Republic of China experienced dramatic growth and expansion that altered the educational environment of children. Rapid economic development increased prosperity and educational opportunities for children expanded in a wealthier society. Yet, a by-product of rising wealth was rising inequality. While the children of the emerging urban middle and elite classes enjoyed new prosperity, the children of hte persistently poor in rural communities continued to experience challenges such as food insecurity, illness, hardships of family separation, and migrant life on the margins of the cities. This time period saw a large resource gap emerge between the home conditions of poor rural children compared with those of their wealthier urban counterparts. This book highlights the complexities China has experienced in seeking to extend full educational access to rural children— including rural- to- urban migrant and ethnic minority children—during a momentous period in China. Chapters delve into the experiences, perceptions, strategies, and diffi culties of rural- origin children and their families in the school system, and lay bare the challenges of policy initiatives designed to support rural education. We hope the experiences detailed here will be of interest to students and scholars of rural educational policy and practice in China and worldwide.