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

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 Featuring all original, previously unpublished material, this volume examines this argument through analysis of selected aspects of educational stratification in China during the reform era.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.

Table of Contents:
Part I Inequalities and Development Discourse; Chapter 1 Schooling and Inequality in China, Gerard A. Postiglione; Chapter 2 Challenging the Gendered Dimensions of Schooling, Heidi Ross; Part II Rural Northwest; Chapter 3 Poverty, Health, and Schooling in Rural China, Shengchao Yu, Emily Hannum; Chapter 4 Tibetan Girls' Education, Vilma Seeberg; Part III Rural Southwest; Chapter 5 Rural Classroom Teaching and Nonfarm Jobs in Yunnan, Jin Xiao; Chapter 6 Education in Rural Tibet, Gerard A. Postiglione, Ben Jiao, Sonam Gyatso; Part IV Urban Divisions: Migrants and the Middle Class; Chapter 7 The Integration of Migrant Children in Beijing Schools, Julia Kwong; Chapter 8 Educational Stratification and the New Middle Class, Jing Lin;

Review :
"This richly empirical volume provides vivid insights into 'the other side' of China's remarkable economic and educational successes - the inequalities of access and provision experienced by children who are disadvantaged by virtue of rural location, gender or minority status. These meticulously researched studies of different aspects and dimensions of inequality in China's rapidly globalizing society show a side of China's development that merits serious attention. They also provide models for analysing educational inequality in other parts of the world. This would thus be an illuminating text for courses in comparative education, comparative sociology, and globalization studies, as well as China-related programs." - Ruth Hayhoe, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto"