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.
I Overviews
- Introduction: Market Reforms and Educational Opportunity in China
- China’s Education Reform: Priorities and Implications
- Returns to Education in Rural China
- Returns to Education in China’s Transitional Economy: Reassessment and Reconceptualization
- Rising Schooling Returns in Urban China
- The Role of Education in Determining Labor Market Outcomes in Urban China
- The Growth and Determinants of Literacy in China
- Intergovernmental Grants and the Financing of Compulsory Education in China
- Emergence of Private Schools in China: Context, Characteristics and Implications
- Patterns of School Enrollment in China in 1990
- School Access and Equity in Rural Tibet
- Educational Attainment in Migrant Children: The Forgotten Story of Urbanization in China
- Learning, Motivation, and Culture Change in China
- Social Capital Formation through Chinese School Communities
- Academic Achievement and Engagement in Rural Western China
- Challenges in Reforming Professional Development
- Incentives and the Quality of Teachers and Schools
Emily Hannum and Albert Park
Kai-ming Cheng
II Marketization and Education
Alan De Brauw and Scott Rozelle
Wei Zhao and Xueguang Zhou
Junsen Zhang and Yaohui Zhao
Margaret Maurer-Fazio
Donald Treiman
III Education for All? School Finance and School Access
Mun Tsang
Jing Lin
Rachel Connelly and Zhenzhen Zheng
Gerard Postiglione
Yiu-Por Chen and Zai Liang
IV The Challenge of Quality Education
Harold Stevenson
Heidi Ross and Jing Lin
Emily Hannum and Albert Park
Lynn Paine and Yanping Fang
Weili Ding and Steven Lehrer
Biography
Albert Park is Associate Professor of Economics and Faculty Associate of the Center for Chinese Studies and International Policy Center at the University of Michigan.
Emily Hannum is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is a member of the Graduate Group in Demography, the Graduate Group in Education, and the Center for East Asian Studies.
"Hannum and Park present a relevant and fitting geographically representative discussion of education and reform in China. The credentials of the editors and authors, coupled with the quantitative and qualitative studies, make the book a valuable resource for those interested in education, public policy, and development issues in China in the twenty-first century." Rhea Ashmore, Comparative Education Review, May 2008
'Emily Hannum, Albert Park and their contributors have given us a stateof-the-art volume, using the most sophisticated social science research methodologies, on some of the key issues the Chinese government and educational authorities have been grappling with over the last two decades.' - The China Review, Vol.8, No.2 (Fall 2008)
