Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T15:05:27.217Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Educational Success in Transitional China: The Gaokao and Learning Capital in Elite Professional Service Firms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2022

Ran Ren Open the ORCID record for Ran Ren [Opens in a new window]
Ran Ren*
Affiliation:
School of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China, and Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite fruitful findings on the reasons underlying the desire for educational success and scarce credentials among students and families, there is little research on the meaning of educational success in the marketplace. As higher education in China has expanded to aid better-quality growth and the transition to a knowledge-based economy, educational success has become increasingly critical in the allocation of socioeconomic rewards. As such, insights into how educational success and concomitant credentials are valorized are empirically and theoretically significant. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 73 recruiters for elite professional service firms, this study analyses the meanings underlying the process of valorizing educational success and elite credentials. It shows that success in the gaokao, or entry to higher education, was qualitatively salient in excluding candidates, while information about subject domains and marks/class rank carried relatively less weight. Recruiters based the value of educational success on the notion of “learning ability,” which reflected their shared understandings about Chinese educational selection/institutions and wider conditions of elite professional firms. On this basis, this paper argues for the development of learning capital as a new theoretical lens for approaching educational success and credentials in transitional China.

摘要

摘要

尽管有丰富的研究关注学生和家庭追逐教育成功和稀缺学历的潜在动机和含义，针对教育成功在市场中含义的研究仍旧稀少。特别是在中国高等教育为了高质量增长和向知识经济转型而扩张且教育成功对于社会经济回报的分配有越发关键意义的背景下，关于教育成功和相应学历是如何被量价的洞见具有深刻的经验和理论意义。基于与73位精英专业服务企业的招聘人员的深度访谈，本文研究教育成功和精英学历在市场量价中的含义建构。此研究揭示了高考的成就或者说高等教育的准入对于筛除应届毕业生有着质性显著的意义，而专业背景和在校成绩的作用较小。雇主针对教育成功的市场价值的解读聚焦于应聘学生的“学习能力”。这个解读反映了雇主们对中国教育筛选/体制以及精英专业服务企业所处的社会经济环境的共同认识。依托本研究的发现，本文提出了发展“学习资本”这一新理论概念来帮助研究和理解教育成功以及学历在转型中国的作用和含义。

Keywords

gaokaocredentialselitesrecruitmentprofessional service firmslearning capitalChina高考学历精英招聘专业服务企业学习资本中国
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 252 , December 2022 , pp. 1277 - 1298
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashley, Louise, and Empson, Laura. 2016. “Explaining social exclusion and the ‘war for talent’ in the UK's elite professional service firms.” In Headworth, Spencer, Nelson, Robert L., Dinovitzer, Ronit and Wilkins, David B. (eds.), Diversity in Practice: Race, Gender, and Class in Legal and Professional Careers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 114–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Gary S. 1993. Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bills, David B., Stasio, Valentina Di and Gërxhani, Klarita. 2017. “The demand side of hiring: employers in the labour market.” Annual Review of Sociology 43(1), 291–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The forms of capital.” In Richardson, John G. (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood Press, 241–258.Google Scholar
Breen, Richard, Hannan, Damian F. and O'Leary, Richard. 1995. “Returns to education: taking account of employers’ perceptions and use of educational credentials.” European Sociological Review 11(1), 59–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bregnbæk, Susanne. 2016. Fragile Elite: The Dilemma of China's Top University Students. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, David K. 2001. “The social sources of educational credentialism: status cultures, labour markets, and organizations.” Sociology of Education 74, 19–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, David K., and Bills, David B.. 2011. “An overture for the sociology of credentialing: empirical, theoretical, and moral considerations.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 29(1), 133–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Phillip, Hesketh, Anthony, and Williams, Sarah. 2004. The Mismanagement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Phillip, and Tannock, Stuart. 2009. “Education, meritocracy and the global war for talent.” Journal of Education Policy 24(4), 377–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryman, Alan. 2012. Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Mingyu. 2019. “The value of US college education in global labor markets: experimental evidence from China.” Princeton Industrial Relations Section Working Paper No. 627, https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp016108vf04f/3/627.pdf.Google Scholar
Chong, Kimberly. 2018. Best Practice: Management Consulting and the Ethics of Financialization in China. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Randall. 1979. The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Du, Zaichao, Sun, Yuting, Zhao, Guochang and Zweig, David. 2021. “Do overseas returnees excel in the Chinese labour market?” The China Quarterly 247, 875–897.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Findlay, Allan M., King, Russell, Smith, Fiona M., Geddes, Alistair and Skeldon, Ronald. 2012. “World class? An investigation of globalization, difference and international student mobility.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37(1), 118–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fong, Vanessa L. 2011. Paradise Redefined. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Theodore P., and Cheung, Sin Yi. 2008. “Horizontal stratification in postsecondary education: forms, explanations, and implications.” Annual Review of Sociology 34(1), 299–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbons, Robert, and Waldman, Michael. 2004. “Task-specific human capital.” American Economic Review 94(2), 203–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Sarah. 2009. “Ecologies of business education and the geographies of knowledge.” Progress in Human Geography 33(5), 599–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Sarah, and Appleyard, Lindsey. 2009. “‘City of London, city of learning’? Placing business education within the geographies of finance.” Journal of Economic Geography 9(5), 597–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Sarah, and Appleyard, Lindsey. 2011. “Trans-local academic credentials and the (re)production of financial elites.” Globalization, Societies and Education 9(2), 247–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hao, Jie, and Welch, Anthony. 2012. “A tale of sea turtles: job-seeking experiences of hai gui (high-skilled returnees) in China.” Higher Education Policy 25(2), 243–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howlett, Zachary M. 2021. Meritocracy and Its Discontents: Anxiety and the National College Entrance Exam in China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hu, Anning, and Vargas, Nicholas. 2015. “Economic consequences of horizontal stratification in postsecondary education: evidence from urban China.” Higher Education 70(3), 337–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jia, Ruixue, and Li, Hongbin. 2017. “The value of elite education in China.” 21st Century China Center Research Paper No. 2017-07, https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3030858.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kang, Lili, Peng, Fei and Zhu, Yu. 2019. “Returns to higher education subjects and tiers in China: evidence from the China family panel studies.” Studies in Higher Education. doi:10.1080/03075079.2019.1698538.Google Scholar
Kariya, Takehiko. 2007. “Gakushu shihon shugi to kyoiku kakusa: shakai seisaku toshite no kyoiku seisaku” (Inequality in education and the rise of “learning capitalist society”). Shakai seisaku gakkaishi 17, 32–48.Google Scholar
Kariya, Takehiko. 2009. “From credential society to ‘learning capital’ society: a rearticulation of class formation in Japanese education and society.” In Hiroshi, Ishida and Slater, David H. (eds.), Social Class in Contemporary Japan: Structures, Sorting and Strategies. New York: Routledge, 105–131Google Scholar
Kipnis, Andrew. 2011. Governing Educational Desire: Culture, Politics and Schooling in China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Jun. 2013. “Job mobility in post-reform urban China.” Chinese Sociological Review 45(4), 81–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Hongbin, Loyalka, Prashant, Rozelle, Scott and Wu, Binzhen. 2017. “Human capital and China's future growth.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31(1), 25–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Hongbin, Meng, Lingsheng, Shi, Xinzheng and Wu, Binzhen. 2012. “Does attending elite colleges pay in China?” Journal of Comparative Economics 40(1), 78–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magnani, Elisabetta, and Zhu, Rong. 2015. “Social mobility and inequality in urban China: understanding the role of intergenerational transmission of education.” Applied Economics 47(43), 4590–4606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matras, Judah. 1975. Social Inequality, Stratification and Mobility. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Mok, Ka-Ho. 2006. Educational Reform and Education Policy in East Asia. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mok, Ka-Ho, Lang, Simon and Xiao, Han. 2020. “The quest for global talent for changing economic needs: a study of student mobility and job prospects for returnees in China.” Globalization, Societies and Education 18(1), 79–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naughton, Barry. 2018. The Chinese Economy: Adaptation and Growth (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rivera, Lauren A. 2011. “Ivies, extracurriculars, and exclusion: elite employers’ use of educational credentials.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 29(1), 71–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera, Lauren A. 2012. “Hiring as cultural matching: the case of elite professional service firms.” American Sociological Review 77(6), 999–1022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera, Lauren A. 2015. Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera, Lauren A. 2020. “Employer decision making.” Annual Review of Sociology 46(1), 215–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, Shaun, and Lewis, John. 2016. “Getting in and finding out: accessing and interviewing elites in business and work contexts.” In Aguiar, Luis L.M. and Schneider, Christopher J. (eds.), Researching Amongst Elites: Challenges and Opportunities in Studying Up. London: Routledge, 89–102.Google Scholar
Steinfeld, Edward S. 2004. “Market visions: the interplay of ideas and institutions in Chinese financial restructuring.” Political Studies 52(4), 643–663.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tholen, Gerbrand. 2017. “Symbolic closure: towards a renewed sociological perspective on the relationship between higher education, credentials and the graduate labour market.” Sociology 51(5), 1067–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tholen, Gerbrand. 2020. “Degree power: educational credentialism within three skilled occupations.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 41(3), 283–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waters, Johanna L. 2006. “Geographies of cultural capital: education, international migration and family strategies between Hong Kong and Canada.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 31(2), 179–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, Xiangrong. 2008. “The impact of overeducation on earnings in China.” Frontier of Education in China 3, 123–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, Xiaogang. 2019. “Inequality and social stratification in postsocialist China.” Annual Review of Sociology 45(1), 363–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, Juan, and Qiu, Muyuan. 2016. “The impact of education on income inequality and intergenerational mobility.” China Economic Review, 37, 110–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zheng, Yanqiao, Zhang, Xiaoqi and Zhu, Yu. 2021. “Overeducation, major mismatch, and return to higher education tiers: evidence from novel data source of a major online recruitment platform in China.” China Economic Review 66, 101584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhou, Yang, and Xie, Yu. 2020. “Cong daxue dao jingying daxue: gaodeng jiaoyude yizhixing shouru huibai he shehui guilei jizhi” (From universities to elite universities: heterogeneous returns to higher education and the sorting mechanism in the context of higher education expansion in China). Jiaoyu yanjiu 5, 86–98.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Ren supplementary material

Ren supplementary material

Download Ren supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 190.7 KB