Download The Consequences of Educational Expansion in Reforming China

The Consequences of Educational
Expansion in Reforming China
Maocan Guo, Sociology, Harvard
Northshore Society Meeting, Oct. 1
Outline
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How sociologists study educational expansion
Educational inequality in China
Intergenerational mobility in China
Comparing China with industrial societies
Educational Expansion and Social Fluidity
• The general expansion in educational system around the
world in the 20th century
• Sociologists’ interest: the triangle relationships between
social origin, educational attainment, and social
destination under educational expansion
• Equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome
• Social fluidity: the degree to which class destinations
depend on class origins (odd ratio)
The Functionalist View
• The core questions: does educational expansion
promote more social fluidity in educational and
occupational attainment?
• The liberal thesis of industrialization (Blau and
Duncan 1966; Treiman 1970)
– Education becomes an increasingly important mechanism
of status transmission.
The Debates
• Empirical results reject the thesis but are still
inconclusive
– The origin-education association: persistent inequality
– The education-destination association: institutionally
conditioned
– The origin-destination association: constant flux
• Substantial variations to the general patterns in all
the three dimensions. How to explain the
similarities and variations?
Exiting Theoretical Accounts
• How to explain the persistent/declining
OE/OD associations in Europe and US?
– Theory of “no trend”: there is a core social fluidity
with four dimensions
– Theory of rational choice: social classes tend to
prior avoidance of downward mobility in
educational attainment; reduced class differentials
in primary and secondary effects.
– Compositional effect
Why China is Special?
• Institutional factors in education
– Rising cost in all upper secondary levels, particularly
at the college level
– The most selective process of school enrollment
moves from college to senior high school
• Sociopolitical context
– The communist state has a strong tendency of political
intervention in educational expansion.
– The house registration (hukou) system
China’s Educational Expansion
National Statistics on Enrollment, by Level
National Statistics on the Transition Rates, by Level
National Statistics on the Transition Rates, by Level
Rising Educational Inequalities in China
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Educational inequality (by rural-urban and class
origin differentials) at the senior high level: first
increase, then decrease
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Educational inequality at the tertiary level:
quickly increase since 1999
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Rural children’s chances to higher education
have been relatively decreased after 1999,
whereas urban children’s chances have been
relatively increased (compared to their previous
cohorts).
Trends of Cumulative Transition Rates, the CHNS Data
Preferential Admission
• Preferential admission policies provide a way alternative to the entrance
examination to get ahead in China’s higher education sector (good school
and good major), in which students from better-off families are more likely
to take advantage.
Preferential Admission
Place origin (village/town [omitted])
County level city
Prefectural city
Provincial capital
Beijing
Family class (upper middle [omitted])
Middle
Low middle or below
Male
Han nationality
Key point school (national/provincial)
Prefectural/county
Not key point school
Constant
Pseudo R2
Observations
0.392**
(0.131)
0.685***
(0.137)
0.953***
(0.145)
0.512***
(0.121)
Exam top 100 in province
0.087
(0.172)
0.178
(0.172)
-0.017
(0.187)
-2.243***
(0.437)
-0.291**
(0.107)
-0.271*
(0.121)
0.091
(0.083)
-2.557***
(0.122)
-0.239
(0.145)
-0.206
(0.174)
-0.140
(0.128)
-0.064
(0.212)
-0.301**
(0.099)
0.054
(0.131)
0.680***
(0.171)
0.148
4736
-0.529***
(0.168)
-0.674*
(0.299)
-2.684***
(0.262)
0.069
4745
Less Social Fluidity in Recent Years
• The immobility parameters seem to increase for the first two cohorts
who spent their youth during the Maoist era, followed by a slight
reduction in the size for the third cohort who were roughly in time to
see the beginning of the economic reform, and a subsequent relative
increase for the later two birth cohorts who basically grew up in the
reform period.
• Analysis of the origin-education association further indicates that
the distribution of educational opportunities are less dependent on
social origin for the first three cohorts than for the later two
• The education-destination association parameters are the lowest for
the first two cohorts who grew up in Maoist China, the highest for
the third cohort, and about intermediate for the two latest cohorts.
Why is China different?
• The theoretical puzzle:
– Why does China have so different a pattern from
most industrial societies in which persistent or
declining OE/OD associations are found?
• My interpretation in a comparative perspective
– Class strategies of social mobility
– The structure of educational institutions
– Sociopolitical institutional contexts
Origin-Education
Association
Persistent Inequalities
Declining Inequalities
Increasing Inequalities
Illustrative Cases
Germany, France, Italy, Britain ,
the United States, Ireland,
Spain, Hungry
The Netherlands, Sweden,
Norway
Soviet Union, China
Education-Destination
Association
Weakening linkages
France, Sweden, Britain ,
Ireland, The Netherlands
Origin-Destination
Association
Constant Flux
Ireland, Britain, Germany
Weakening linkages
The Netherlands, France,
Sweden
Russia, China
Increasing linkages
A Micro-based Theory on Educational Expansion
• Class strategies of social mobility
– Different classes have different strategies for social mobility, but their goal of
social mobility is assumed to be the same, i.e. prioritizing avoidance of
downward mobility over achievement of upward mobility
– Strategies from above (service class) vs. strategies from below (working class).
• The structure of educational institutions
– In industrial societies such as Europe and the US  working class’s mobility
strategies tend to be the same as the service class  Persistent or declining
inequality
– In societies like China with increasing but inadequate educational opportunity
and rising educational cost  working class’s mobility strategies tend to be
constrained by the rising educational cost and early barrier of selection
Rising inequality
• Sociopolitical institutional contexts
– The state has a strong tendency of political intervention?
Thanks for Your Attention!