![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
Individual education performance is usually influenced jointly by ability and background (family background). The relative share of these two factors forms the basic grounds for judgments of educational equity. Using sheaf coefficients, we compare the influence of these two mechanisms on the distribution of access to regular first degree higher education opportunities for institutions at different levels. Our findings show that both ability and family background have a marked influence. The higher the level of the institution, the greater the ability demanded of its students. The effect of family also increases significantly at this level, but ability always has a much stronger influence than family background. It can be seen that though family background is influential in the distribution of higher education opportunities in China today, ability fundamentally remains the dominant criterion, embodying the classic features of a meritocratic society “open to talent.”
个人的教育成就通常受能力和出身（家庭背景）的共同影响，而能力和出身作用 的相对大小又是评判教育公平的基本依据。采用系数集束化方法，比较能力和出身两 种机制对不同层级的普通本科教育机会分配的影响作用，发现能力和出身的影响同时 显著存在，高等学校的层级越高，对学生的能力要求越高，出身的影响也显著增强； 能力影响始终较大程度地高于出身影响。可见，当前中国高等教育机会分配中尽管存 在出身的影响，但根本上仍秉持着能力评价的主导性标准，体现了绩能社会”唯才是 举”的典型特征。
Notes
* This study was supported by the National Philosophy and Social Science Foundation project “A Study of Trends in the Evolution of the Structure of Social Strata in China” (10ASH002); the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Key Research Bases (Center for Studies of Sociological Theory and Method of Renmin University) major topic “Sociological Theory and Empirical Research on Equity in Education” (07JJD840198), Tsinghua University Humanities and Social Sciences Revitalization Fund Research Program Later Stage project “Research on Educational Equity and Social Stratification” (2010WKHQ008), etc. The empirical research data in the paper come from the China Higher Education Student Study and Development Tracking Survey, a survey of college and university students jointly undertaken by Tsinghua University’s Institute of Education and the China Economic and Social Data Center (CCSS2010-2013). Special thanks goes to our program partners, especially Professor Shi Jinghuan, Professor Li Hongbin and Professor Luo Yan from Tsinghua University and other partner universities and their staff. We also express our gratitude to anonymous reviewers for providing valuable advice and suggestions. It should be noted that the research data in the paper cover only higher education students, excluding those not admitted to colleges or universities; therefore, the distribution of opportunities for admission to higher education refers only to the distribution of opportunities for admission to different levels of colleges and universities.
1 Wang Weiyi, Research on Opportunities for Admission to Higher Education: A Social Strata Perspective.
2 Xie Zuoyu and Wang Weiyi, “An Exploration of Differential Opportunities for Admission to Higher Education for Children from Different Social Strata: A Survey of Some Colleges and Universities in Shaanxi, Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanghai”; “Research on Differential Opportunities for Admission to Higher Education for Children from Different Social Strata: In Terms of Disciplines and Specialities”; “Research on Differential Opportunities for Admission to Higher Education for Children from Different Social Strata in the Context of Mass Higher Education”; Ding Xiaohao, “Higher Education Expansion and Equalization of Admission Opportunities”; Liu Jingming, “Higher Education Expansion and Differential Opportunities for Admission: 1978-2003”; Hu Rong and Zhang Yizhen, “A Study of the Current Rate of Enrolment for Different Social Strata in Chinese Higher Education”; Yang Dongping, Ideal and Reality in China’s Educational Equity; Liu Yunshan et al., “Selection of Elites: From the Perspective of Status, Region and Financial Capital: Farmers’ Children Admitted to Peking University (1978-2005)”; Du Guiying, “Influence of Family Background upon Opportunities for Admission to Higher Education in China: Based on the Report of a 2009 Survey of University Graduates”; Yan Guangfen and Wang Hongyu, “Analysis of Access to Quality Higher Education Resources and Its Determinants: A Social Stratification Perspective,” etc.
3 J. Goldthorpe, “Rational Action Theory for Sociology,” pp. 167-192；Samuel R. Lucas, “Effectively Maintained Inequality: Education Transitions, Track Mobility, and Social Background Effects,” pp. 1642-1690; Adrian E. Raftery and Michael Hout, “Maximally Maintained Inequality: Expansion, Reform, and Opportunity in Irish Education, 1921-75,” pp. 41-62.
4 In discussing the distribution mechanisms for access to higher education, we take ability and class background as two independent explanatory variables. In fact, the latter is one of the most significant factors influencing ability, but we do not focus on indirect effects of this kind.
5 F. Parkin, Class Inequality and Political Order: Social Stratification in Capitalist and Communist Societies.
6 J.W. Meyer, “Types of Explanation in the Sociology of Education,” p. 348.
7 M.R. Olneck and J. Crouse, “The IQ Meritocracy Reconsidered: Cognitive Skill and Adult Success in the United States,” pp. 1-31.
8 C. Burt, “Ability and Income,” pp. 83-98.
9 Larry J. Griffin and Arne L. Kalleberg, “Stratification and Meritocracy in the United States: Class and Occupational Recruitment Patterns,” pp. 1-38.
10 John Bynner and Heather Joshi, “Equality and Opportunity in Education: Evidence from the 1958 and 1970 Birth Cohort Studies,” pp. 405-425.
11 Annette Lareau, “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families,” pp. 747-776.
12 Such as J. Goldthorpe, Social Mobility and Strata Structure in Modern Britain.
13 P. Saunders, “Social Mobility and Meritocracy”; “Might Britain Be a Meritocracy?”, pp. 23-41.
14 R. Bond and P. Saunders, “Routes of Success: Influences on the Occupational Attainment of Young British Males,” pp. 217-249.
15 R. Breen and J. Goldthorpe, “Class Inequality and Meritocracy: A Critique of Saunders and an Alternative Analysis,” pp. 1-27.
16 P. Saunders, “Reflections on the Meritocracy Debate in Britain: A Response to Richard Breen and John Goldthorpe,” pp. 559-574.
17 P. Saunders, Social Mobility Delusions.
18 Gary Marks and Julie McMillan, “Declining Inequality? The Changing Impact of Socio-Economic Background and Ability on Education in Australia,” pp. 453-471.
19 Ora-orn Poocharoen and Alex Brillantes, “Meritocracy in Asia Pacific: Status, Issues, and Challenges,” pp. 140-163.
20 The data in this paragraph does not have an immediate source. It is mainly based on some key colleges’ and universities’ annual autonomous enrolment plans, the conditions under which they offer bonus points and their quota of recommended students.
21 Liu Jirong, A Theoretical and Empirical Study of the Merging of Higher Education Institutions.
22 Cited from Kang Ning, “The Theoretical Basis of Higher Education Reform and Structural Adjustment in Today’s China.”
23 Liu Jingming, “Higher Education Expansion and Differential Opportunities for Admission: 1978-2003.”
24 Samuel R. Lucas, “Effectively Maintained Inequality: Education Transitions, Track Mobility, and Social Background Effects,” pp. 1642-1690.
25 R. Breen, “Inequality, Economic Growth and Social Mobility,” pp. 429-449.
26 Here we are grateful to Li Yu, Professor at the Institute of Sociology, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, for his suggestions on the interpretation of the selection effect.
27 For more detailed information on the project, see its website: http://ccss.ioe.tsinghua.edu.cn, April 23, 2014.
28 It should be noted that there are many missing values in the variable for the higher education entrance examination score. In order to bring the samples with the missing variable into the model analysis, we replace the missing sscore with “0,” and at the same time set up a missing value dummy in the model [misscore = missing (sscore)]. This treatment ensures that the covariate values of samples where the entrance scores are missing can be part of the model analysis. The effect of the variable itself can only be calculated from the valid samples; it is not affected by the replacement value “0” of the missing samples. The effect of the missing samples is fully expressed by the missing value dummy variables.
29 J. Blake, Family Size and Achievement, p. 12.
30 Due to space limitations, we omit the descriptive statistics of the variables and the results of the following conventional mlogit model. Interested persons can obtain them from the author at socliu@163. com.
31 David R. Heise, “Employing Nominal Variables, Induced Variables, and Block Variables in Path Analyses,” pp. 147-173.
32 For estimation methods and their calculation, please refer to Maarten L. Buis, “ Three Models for Combining Information from Causal Indicators.”
33 See also Liu Yunshan, “Beyond Meritocracy.”
34 See also A. Allen, “Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy: A Philosophical Critique.”