Cross-field effect and institutional habitus formation: self-reinforcing inequality in Chinese higher education system

Abstract

Bourdieu’s concept of field offers an alternative explanation for the inevitable gap between policy initiative and implementation. While the existing literature mostly concentrated on the dichotomy of macro- and micro-politics in enacting education policies, the missing attention to meso-level, local governments as policy interpreters and implementers in some developing countries with a vast territory, China and Russia, for example, has hindered deeper exploration in policy studies. Adopting cross-field effects as the theoretical base and applying Bourdieu's conceptual triad as a whole, rather than considering habitus, practice, or field separately, this study examines Chinese transnational higher education (TNHE) policy enactment by subnational authorities, aiming to: first, contextualize Bourdieu's theoretical and empirical approaches in various political/economic systems while consider the policy practice at meso-level; second, demonstrate the essentiality of conversation rate and standard of capitals in field analysis; and third, based on these analyses, explore the formation of institutional habitus as a way of explaining the perennial inequality in the Chinese higher education (HE) system. The paper concludes with a theoretical reflection that Bourdieu’s ever-developing definition of habitus and the criticism of his unavoidable relapse to objectivism result from the indiscriminate use of individual and institutional habitus.

Keywords:

• Bourdieu
• meso-level
• transnational higher education
• cross-field effects
• standard and conversion rate of capitals
• institutional habitus

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Professor Carol Vincent very much for the revision opportunity, and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which significantly improve this article. My deep appreciation extends to Professor Ka Ho MOK from Lingnan University, Professor Tai Lok LUI, Professor Suyan PAN from the Education University of Hong Kong, for their wise instructions on my doctoral dissertation (2016), based on which the current article develops.

Notes

1. When examining the cross-field effects, this study majorly focuses on the effects exerted by other fields on the field of education policy implementation, illustrating the mutual influences (e.g. one scholar involved in the TNHE regulating policy refinement mentions that the central government has been collecting subnational authorities’ advice on the revision, which it intends to release in 2018, demonstrating the reverse effect exerted on the field of policy production, or broadly speaking, on the field of power).

2. Naidoo (2004) also noticed the cross-field effects when discussing the ‘growing and relatively unmediated influence of economic forces on the field of university education’ (469) although she has not explicitly used the term. See also Maton (2005b, 182) when talking about the ‘refraction coefficient’ of the field of higher education in mediating pressures from the external.

3. The usage of agent in Bourdieu’s later works represents his emphasis that agency is located within individuals rather than within structures (Rawolle and Lingard 2008, 739).

4. Bourdieu has also clearly treated habitus as holding duality as collective and individualized when talking about class habitus (Reay 2004).

5. Referring to Item 6 in the Interim Provision on the Term of Political Cadres issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China (2006), cadres will not be recommended or nominated or take the same position after two working terms (5 years for one term).

6. Major focus was on Sino-foreign cooperation universities in this study for the following reasons: (a) the relatively small number of Sino-foreign cooperation universities was convenient for data collection; (b) the local governments’ strong support is apparent in introducing this kind of university (see the related policies released by some provincial governments, for example: Guangdong Provincial Government 2013; Jiangsu Provincial Government 2011; Shanghai Municipal Government 2012; Zhejiang Provincial Government 2011; all representing the products of practice as proposed by Rawolle 2010); and (c) the Sino-foreign cooperation programmes and secondary/subordinate (erji) colleges, except for some entitled to recruit students autonomously, are required to share the enrolment quota with their affiliated Chinese university (provincial government official B and C). In this sense, the cooperation programmes and second-colleges could only produce limited HE opportunities for the locating provinces (MOE 2016c).

7. In 1995, the central government launched the ‘211’ project, aiming to enhance teaching, research, and management quality through the cooperation of the central government, local governments, and the HEIs; furthermore, in 1998, realizing the low international rankings of Chinese universities, the central government initiated the ‘985’ project, hoping to establish world-class universities and prestigious research-oriented HEIs. As of 2018, there are only 39 universities in this project, representing less than 3% of nearly 2000 full-time state universities in China, but hosting over 50% doctor candidates, the national key disciplines, and state key laboratories. More than half the academicians of science and technology graduate from these universities (Ying 2011; MOE 2012c).

Currently, the ‘Double First-Class’ Initiative (including establishment of world-class universities and first-class disciplines) is being promoted based on the Project ‘985’ and ‘211’. Besides the ‘211’ universities, the ‘Double First-Class’ Initiative added 25 new members, with 8 in Beijing, 2 in Tianjin, 4 in Shanghai, 4 in Jiangsu, 2 in Zhejiang, 1 in Henan, 1 in Guangdong, and 3 in Sichuan. Seen from this perspective, the regional inequality in high-quality HE resources continues to persist (Gao 2017).

8. This regulation, in fact, is consistent with Bourdieu’s argument that in the field of power, the logic of ‘universal’ (1998a, 59). As the inequality of educational resource distribution is also evident in basic education (Zhang and Kanbur 2005; Wang 2011), if students were recruited nationwide without geographical quota, the inequality would be more severe, rather than alleviated (for example, in the Song dynasty, before the policy of geographical quota distribution, 9,164 out of 9,630 Jinshi came from the Southern part of China, accounting for 95.2% (Chaffee 1995, 132–133).

9. This is another instance that demonstrates the effect of national policy on local implementation. While the central government has clearly claimed that the local enrolment rate should be lower than 30% in 2008 (Guo 2008), certain universities continue to allot about half of their quota locally, 48.52% in 2017, Zhejiang University, for example (Zhejiang University 2017).

10. Before the release of Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (State Council 2003), the Chinese government had strictly forbidden profit making from transnational cooperation (State Education Commission – renamed as Ministry of Education after 1998, 1995). As Mok and Chan (2012) argued, ‘before China joined the WTO, the government adopted TNHE as a policy tool to help create additional higher education learning opportunities for local high school graduates, instead of conceiving of it as a form of trade’ (115).

11. TNHE is categorized as non-state education in China, under the regulation of the Non-state Education Promotion Law of the People's Republic of China (State Council 2004).

12. Even though locality is also the main concern of enrolled students and foreign partners, according to the interviews, financial support from the local governments invariably occupies the first consideration. As one government official in Province X clearly mentions, ‘they [the overseas collaborators] are generally reluctant to invest in the campus financially’.

13. When Bourdieu (1998a, 59) talks about ‘the monopoly of the universal’, he mentions that it ‘can only be obtained at the cost of a submission (if only in appearance) to the universal and of a universal recognition of the universalist representation of domination presented as legitimate and disinterested’. To the author’s understanding, it implies the rule of equality in society. This argument is also based on the initiative of national policies of various countries (leaving implementation aside), such as the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ (the US); the ‘Higher Standards, Better Schools for All’ (the UK); the ‘Equality, Diversity and Excellence: Advancing the National Equity Framework’ (Australia); and TNHE regulations in China.

14. Although noticing with Rowlands and Rawolle (2013) that neoliberalism is not a theory of everything, its feature of ‘free trade’ (Harvey 2005, 2) in global education market which favors the ‘well-developed education systems and institutions, thereby compounding existing inequalities’ (Altbach and Knight 2007, 291) justifies why Bourdieu (2003) considers the global field as ‘the creation of the conditions for domination’ (85), in this study, the domination of HEIs in the western countries.

15. When labelling TNHE as ‘overseas study in the territory of mainland China’ (Zhao 2013), the policy aim of reversing or at least alleviating talent loss under the impact of globalization is obvious.

16. This is based on calculations by the International Institute of Management Development (IMD), aiming to measure, compare, and report ‘brain drain’ problems in different countries.

17. It is not the current article’s major concern to identify whether the trend in China should be labelled decentralization, or deconcentration (Karlsen 2000) although, politically, its features are similar to the latter.

18. The other possible explanation is the ‘political opportunity structure’. For detailed information, see Tsai and Dean (2014).

19. Politically, there are 6 administrative levels in China: central, provincial, prefecture, county, township, and village. The emphasis of the M-structure is on the former five levels.

20. For additional details, refer to Jiang (2015).

21. According to the co-construction contract (gongjian xieyi), the investment from the central and the local government should reach a ratio of 1:1 (MOE 2012d).