Higher Education, Meritocracy and Inequality in China
Higher Education, Meritocracy and Inequality in China

Author: Ye Liu

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-10-08

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 9811015880

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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.

Understanding Inequality in China
Understanding Inequality in China

Author: Xiaogang Wu

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-11

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 1040254969

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This edited volume provides an overview of inequality and stratification in contemporary China. A rare and timely resource, it presents key research on the topic published in Chinese Sociological Review from 2011 to 2023, using one or multiple waves of Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data, reflecting the advancement of the field over the past decade. The CGSS, launched in 2003 and modelled after the US General Social Survey, is an annual or biennial cross-sectional survey of a nationally representative sample of the population from all provinces except for Tibet. Certain waves of CGSS data (e.g., 2003 and 2008) contain detailed retrospective information about education and job history, which can be analysed to address various issues related to educational stratification and career mobility in both the pre-reform and reform eras. At the junction of the 20th anniversary of the CGSS (2003-2023), this volume draws on CGSS data to uncover dynamic and evolving inequality in China by examining topics such as education stratification, income inequality, career and intergeneration mobility, and how they are shaped by the socialist/post-socialist institutional structure such as the household registration (hukou) system, the work unit (danwei) system. This collection significantly advances the understanding of Chinese social stratification, extending far beyond scholars’ initial interests in the social consequences of the market transition. This volume invites social scientists to think more deeply about how politics and economics interplay with other social and demographic trends in shaping the pattern of inequality and provides a rich source and foundation for understanding inequality dynamics in contemporary China.

An Integrated Assessment of China’s Ecological Restoration Programs
An Integrated Assessment of China’s Ecological Restoration Programs

Author: Runsheng Yin

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-07-14

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 904812655X

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China has been undertaking unprecedented ecological restoration efforts to deal with its problems of soil erosion, flooding, dust storms, and habitat loss. While there have been studies of these efforts, questions remain concerning whether they have been effectively implemented, what their induced socioeconomic and ecological impacts are, and how their performance can be improved. Tackling these important questions in an integrated manner, “An Integrated Assessment of China’s Ecological Restoration Programs” is extraordinary for its broad coverage and methodological rigor. It provides a substantial improvement over the conventional approach of simply reporting projects undertaken and accepting uncritically the government assessment, and thus fills an important knowledge gap of the restoration efforts being implemented upon a variety of ecosystems in China.

Inequality of Opportunity
Inequality of Opportunity

Author: Juan Gabriel Rodríguez

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2011-10-12

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1780520344

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Eight papers, both theoretical and applied, on the concept of equality of opportunity which says that a society should guarantee its members equal access to advantage regardless of their circumstances, while holding them responsible for turning that access into actual advantage by the application of effort.

Selected Essays on China’s Education: Research and Review, Volume 3
Selected Essays on China’s Education: Research and Review, Volume 3

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-09-16

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 9004409785

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Selected Essays on China’s Education: Research and Review (4 volumes) consists of 22 most influential theses on the history and tradition of Chinese Education. These essays, selected and translated from China’s Education: Research and Review, a serial publication in Chinese, reflect the progress of qualitative research on Chinese education both within and outside China. Volume 1 focuses on Written and Oral Narratives, including six articles; Volume 2 focuses on History and Current Reality, including five articles; Volume 3 focuses on Knowledge and Tradition, including six articles; and Volume 4 focuses on Gender and Education, including five articles. Aiming to promote academic dialogues on Chinese culture and education, these essays explore important educational and cultural issues in China with a transcultural perspective.

Policy and Practice Challenges for Equality in Education
Policy and Practice Challenges for Equality in Education

Author: Neimann, Theresa

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2021-09-10

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1799873811

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Well-educated populations are important aspects of any contemporary society, as education increases national and global development and the positive expansion of communities to participate actively in civil matters also increases. Educational equality is based on the principles of administrative competence and fairness of access and distribution of resources, opportunities, and treatment, which ensures success for every person. Ensuring equal access to quality education requires addressing a wide range of persistent inequalities in society and includes a stronger focus on how different forms of inequalities intersect to produce unequal opportunities or outcomes that affect marginalized and vulnerable groups. Policy and Practice Challenges for Equality in Education takes a multifaceted look at issues of equality and inequality in education as related to policy, practice, resource access, and distribution. As such, this book explores the potential practices in education that serve to mitigate and transform unproductive practices which have left societies scarred by social and educational inequalities. The chapters provide a critical analysis of the manifestations of inequalities in various educational contexts and discerns how broader social inequalities are informed by education-related matters. This book is ideal for sociologists, administrators, instructors, policymakers, data scientists, community leaders, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in educational equality and the unique challenges being faced worldwide.

The Palgrave Handbook of Methodological Individualism
The Palgrave Handbook of Methodological Individualism

Author: Nathalie Bulle

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2024-01-29

Total Pages: 688

ISBN-13: 3031415086

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While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist tradition with philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century.

Education and Social Change in China: Inequality in a Market Economy
Education and Social Change in China: Inequality in a Market Economy

Author: Gerard A. Postiglione

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-01-28

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1317472349

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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.