Chinese Education and Society最新文献

{"title":"Breaking Free of Class Constraints—A Qualitative Study of 10 Post-80s Rural Children with Higher Educational Attainment","authors":"Dong Yonggui","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1693805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1693805","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study selected 10 rural children who attended undergraduate programs at 211/985 universities as its research subjects, for analysis of the underlying reasons behind their achievement of higher educational attainment. The study found that the principal reasons were as follows: First, escaping a rural area and repaying their parents were powerful motivations for them to study hard. Second, they exhibited a high degree of identification with the instrumental value of education: they believed that knowledge would change their fate, and assiduously studied to achieve this end. Third, they played an active role, proactively competing for all available resources. Fourth, as important others, teachers compensated for the inadequacy of their families’ cultural capital.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"8 1","pages":"336 - 346"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83658489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Actively Present and Dutiful Individual: An Empirical Study of the Familial Cultural Capital of Rural Students","authors":"Xuelong Hu, Yong-Ku Kang","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1693807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1693807","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Existing studies have found that the starting point for class divisions is the family: while schools play a interrupting role, it is passive compared to the roles of the family and children themselves. It is therefore taken for granted when rural students are screened out by school education or fail to test into good universities. If the unexpected occurs, it merely represents a fluke, or the result of individual striving. This paper draws on qualitative research in finding that familial cultural capital plays a unique and positive role in the process of rural children testing into key universities, and that their success is not entirely the result of individual striving. It is particularly worth noting that the concept of “dutifulness” emphasized in rural families is consistent with the mainstream ideology of school education. These individuals therefore exhibit an “actively present” state in education, ultimately achieving academic success.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"40 1","pages":"347 - 362"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91367970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unpacking the Extraordinary Academic Success of Rural Students","authors":"Li Xiaoliang","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1693798","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1693798","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past three decades, the unprecedented expansion of enrollments for higher education has led to the continual devaluation of university degrees in China (Fan and Ding 2013). Admission to elite universities has become increasingly important for rural youngsters who, without strong guanxi or social capital in the competitive labor market, are eager to move up the social ladder. A growing number of empirical studies (Yang 2006; Luo 2011; Li 2014; Wu, X 2016) attests to the fact that the proportion of rural students is very likely to be negatively associated with the prestige of universities they attend. Studies in the field are usually preoccupied with the economic, social and cultural obstacles that contribute to academic failure among many rural teenagers (Yu 2004; Gao 2011; Xie 2016; Li 2017). But, how small numbers of rural teenagers manage to enter prestigious universities has largely remained a black box. Cultural barriers to academic success are usually more difficult to overcome than poverty (Li 2010; Hannum, An, and Cherng 2011; Bourdieu and Passeron 1979). Researchers argue that, in comparison to their urban counterparts, rural students in China are more likely to encounter academic failure. The meritocratic character of school education (in textbooks, the medium of instruction, and examinations) give primacy to mainstream urban culture (Li 1999; Yu 2004; Wu, J 2016). The distance between the national school curriculum and rural life is revealed in the rural students’ shortage of mainstream cultural capital. This becomes a formidable obstacle in the school career of rural students. Studies in this volume illustrate how rural students’ disadvantage in cultural capital is addressed and compensated by rural families, school teachers, and rural students themselves. The first paper is a collaborative work by Professor Yu Xiulan and her student Han Yan. Professor Yu has long been known in the field for her pioneering work on how cultural capital (the preferences for urban culture in school education) leads to academic failure for the majority of China’s rural students (Yu 2004). Yu and Han illustrate how underprivileged students are successful in gaining admission to University A—a top-tier institution. Yu and Han specify that underprivileged students only receive spiritual or verbal support from their parents, but the learning atmosphere at school, the inspiring teachers, and their outstanding classmates made up for their disadvantages in cultural capital. Moreover, the financial and cultural predicament engenders certain forms of embodied cultural capital unique for underprivileged students, i.e., the determination to upgrade their lives through their own efforts.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"69 1","pages":"297 - 300"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75878879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How Humble Families Produce “Successful Descendants”—Class Advancement from the Perspective of Cultural Capital","authors":"Yue Xiulan, Hanbing Yan","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1693802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1693802","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract When disadvantaged families seek to achieve upward social mobility, their most important breakthrough point is for their children to receive an education, and cultural capital is the most likely driving factor influencing educational attainment. In China, although the privileged classes have an advantage in terms of cultural capital, exhibiting a phenomenon of cultural reproduction, premium cultural capital does not display clear class divisions or exclusiveness, and students from disadvantaged families can compensate for their family’s lack of cultural capital through important figures or other avenues. More importantly, the circumstances of disadvantage engender cultural capital characterized by disadvantage, greatly promoting the academic success of students from disadvantaged families. For “successful descendants” to emerge from humble families, impoverished families must not only actively compensate for their family’s lack of cultural capital, but must also strive to produce the cultural capital particular to disadvantaged families; at the same time, the state and society must also provide multifaceted support.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"246 1","pages":"301 - 320"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76327663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Analysis of Employment Trends for Chinese College Graduates from 2003 to 2017","authors":"Y. Changjun, Zhou Liping","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1667702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1667702","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article utilizes data from eight surveys of national samples of college graduates conducted by the Institute of Economics of Education at Peking University in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017 to conduct a trend analysis on employment status and job-seeking status among graduates, summarizing 12 overarching employment characteristics and changing trends for graduates since the expansion of admissions at institutions of higher education in China, and proposing corresponding policy recommendations.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"21 1","pages":"249 - 273"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84410412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Boundary-Work and Discipline Construction: Boundary Strategies to Institutionalize Guoxue as a Discipline and Its Failure","authors":"Lin Yaqiong","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1667704","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1667704","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The construction of knowledge boundaries is an important mechanism in the formation of disciplines. This article examines and analyzes boundary strategies and difficulties in the institutionalization of guoxue (“national studies” or “Chinese classics”) as a discipline in recent years from the perspective of boundary-work. To establish guoxue as a discipline, proponents of the discipline have proposed the knowledge strategies of “new guoxue” and “broad guoxue,” so as to dispel potential conflict between guoxue and the external political environment. In addition, in the construction of the discipline, proponents have emphasized the differences between Chinese and Western scholarship, and also made analogy to Western Sinology, to highlight the necessity of constructing a holistic “discipline of guoxue.” However, these strategies and efforts have not achieved the objective of building guoxue as a discipline. One important reason is that guoxue studies are, to a very great extent, embedded in Chinese literature, Chinese history, Chinese philosophy and other related disciplines. The knowledge boundaries between guoxue and these disciplines are fuzzy, and the construction of the discipline lacks driving force from daily research practices. The process of to build a guoxue discipline can contribute to reflect on the existing discipline governance system in mainland China.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"36 1","pages":"274 - 296"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82200813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"“Useless Schooling” or “Hopeless Schooling”: An Ethnographic Study of Lower-Class Rural Parents’ Perceptions on the Value of Schooling","authors":"Xie Ailei","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1667688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1667688","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Based on the data collected in a one-year long fieldwork in Zhong, a county located in middle part of China, this article reconsiders the concept of “useless schooling,” which was proposed in recent studies on the perceptions of value of education among lower-class rural residents in China. It calls for a understanding of those changes in the macro social structure, which becomes increasingly stratified, and the emerging patterns of educational opportunity structure in the era of social transformation, and argues that this is the base for the understanding lower-class rural parents’ perceptions on the value of schooling. This article employs Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” and conceptualizes the process of how lower-class rural residents form their value on school education as a process of structural factors being internalized into individual dispositions. Based on the data collected, this article proposes to use the concept of “hopeless schooling” to capture their perceptions on the value of school education. It emphasizes that the emerging education opportunity structure and differentiated chances of social mobility by different social groups have gradually been transformed into a stratified pattern of “expectations” for education and social mobility, and proposes the need to examine the ongoing solidification of social structure in this period of transformation.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"186 - 207"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88253633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"State Power, Symbolic Capital, and the Hierarchy and Homogeneity of Higher Education in China: In the Example of Three Key Universities Policies After the Founding of New China","authors":"L. Xiaohong","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1667696","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1667696","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The structure of higher education in China is characterized by a high degree of hierarchy as well as strong homogeneity, differing from not only American higher education, which features a high degree of both hierarchy and heterogeneity, but also higher education in continental Europe, which exhibits a low degree of hierarchy. Previous studies have provided analysis of the structural characteristics of higher education in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, as well as their differences, but have been unable to explain the situation in China. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, this article proposes an explanatory model for the field of higher education as shaped by state power. The state created various forms of symbolic capital linked to economic capital in the field of higher education, and monopolized the quantity in which and means by which these are bestowed, thus causing differentiation in the total amount and composition of symbolic capital and economic capital between different schools, and forming a steeply stratified structure. The bestowal of symbolic capital was not restricted to a particular group of institutions of higher education: instead, the scope of this bestowal was gradually expanded, such that the vast majority of institutions of higher education regard the acquisition of symbolic capital and its attendant economic capital as the objective in their endeavors, resulting in the development of strong homogeneity between institutions. The article applies field theory to three key universities policies after the founding of New China, to describe and analyze the influence of symbolic capital on the field structure of higher education in China.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"13 1","pages":"208 - 230"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74494786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Free Choice and Institutional Selection: Cultivation of the Elite in the Era of Mass Higher Education, Based on a Case Study of Peking University","authors":"Yunshan Liu","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1667677","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1667677","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract On the basis of reforms to undergraduate education at Peking University, this article sets out from students’ free choice and strict institutional selection, focusing on the process of the cultivation of the elite in mass higher education. The article analyzes the systems for student recruitment, talent training, educational programs, testing and assessment, and so on, revealing the plural logic behind the selection of the elite, the expansion of the number of courses under the trend of generalism, competitiveness under the power of rigorous testing and assessment, and rational management and skill-based performance by the individual. Going a step further, this article examines the fracturing of campuses due to erosion by instrumental rationality and consumerism, alienation in teacher-student relationships, and the essential hollowness of education. Finally, the article discusses students’ dispositional characteristics as shaped by trial and error through free choice.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"12 1","pages":"113 - 161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87413323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Right or Duty: Reinterpretation of the Nature of the Right to Education in the Compulsory Education Stage","authors":"Shen Suping, Chen Zijian","doi":"10.1080/10611932.2019.1667698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2019.1667698","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract With respect to the rights and duties of citizens to receive an education, as provided under the Constitution and the Education Law of China, academic circles have proposed three interpretations: the combined right and duty viewpoint, the right viewpoint, and the duty viewpoint. Through analysis of the course of the emergence, development, and evolution of the Constitution of New China and relevant articles of the Compulsory Education Law, this article argues that the understanding of citizens’ right to education in the compulsory education stage should uphold the combined right and duty viewpoint, regarding the right to education as the right to the starting point and the process of education, and the duty to receive an education as an outcome- and goal-oriented duty.","PeriodicalId":39911,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Education and Society","volume":"25 1","pages":"231 - 248"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73869255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}