Reconstructing choice: parental choice of internationally-oriented “public” high schools in China

ABSTRACT

This article examines a new trend of high school choice in China – parental choice of emerging international high-school curriculum programs (IHSCPs) recently established by Chinese elite public high schools. We add to the existing critical literature on school choice by providing a detailed empirical analysis of why, how, and under what conditions Chinese parents with high socio-economic status choose a particular IHSCP. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual triad of practice – capital, habitus, and field, the article points out that Chinese upper-middle- and upper-class parents engage in complicated conversion strategies surrounding their individual and collective struggles for elite education in both national and international fields of power. The study foregrounds the role of neoliberalism in articulating local and global education markets that allows privileged Chinese to transcend structural constraints in China and seek out opportunities in the international education field for their children.

KEYWORDS:

• school choice
• parental choice
• capital
• habitus
• field
• elite education
• neoliberalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. There is no standard definition of ‘middle class’. In 2004, China’s National Bureau of Statistics categorizes the Chinese middle class as households with an annual income from ¥60,000 to ¥500,000. Scholars (e.g. Chen & Lamberti, 2015; Priporas et al., 2020) consider Chinese families with annual incomes in the ¥120,000 to ¥500,000 range as ‘upper-middle class’ and those with incomes above ¥500,000 as ‘upper class’.

2. There has been a rapid expansion of international schools in China over the past decade. According to ISC Research (2023a, 2023b), there were about 1,101 international schools serving 406,224 students. International schools approved by China’s Ministry of Education are classified into three categories: (1) traditional international schools that exclusively serve the children of diplomats, expatriates, and Chinese holding foreign passports; (2) privately-funded Chinese international schools; (3) international division in Chinese public schools. The latter two types cater primarily to Chinese students who plan to attend college overseas. The average annual tuition fees of the three types of international high schools in Chinese first-tier cities are ¥198,500, ¥156,000, and ¥102,600, respectively (NewSchool Insight, 2019).

3. The government-approved IHSCPs are not uncontested. Criticisms highlight these international programs utilize public educational resources to serve only students from affluent families. Whether or not Chinese public schools should run their international programs is disputable. Thus, the Moon City municipal government stopped approving more IHSCPs in 2014. Although the issue of IHSCPs became a ‘hot’ educational topic for the 2015 National People’s Congress Conference and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the state hasn’t made appropriate educational policies to regulate the emerging IHSCPs (Liu, 2020).

4. The role of mothers in making high school choice needs to be explored further but goes beyond the focus of this article.

5. For details about the Sunny High IAP international curriculum program, see Liu (2020).

6. The term hukou refers to China’s household registration. The hukou system records the residential location of every Chinese citizen and assigns registered residents either a rural or urban hukou status. The initial purpose of the Chinese hukou system as established in the 1950s was to maintain social stability and safeguarding the people’s security. Over the past five decades, however, the hukou system has served as the institutional guardian of the deep urban-rural divide in China by prioritizing the city over the countryside and restricting rural residents’ access to state-sponsored benefits enjoyed by urban residents. For details about China’s hukou system, see Cheng and Selden (1994) and Chan and Buckingham (2008).

7. ‘Key’ schools are also translated as ‘key point’ or ‘key-point’ schools.

8. There are 75 universities directly administered by China’s Ministry of Education. For details, see http://en.moe.gov.cn/subordinate_universities/

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shuning Liu

Shuning Liu is an associate professor in Curriculum Studies at the Department of Educational Studies, Teachers College, Ball State University. Her primary research interests are in the areas of social theory, critical curriculum studies, critical policy analysis, international education, globalization and education, and qualitative inquiry. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her current research projects involve the role of international education in the formation of social elites. Her recent research work has been published as a book Neoliberalism, Globalization, and “Elite” Education in China: Becoming International (Routledge, 2020).

Michael W. Apple

Michael W. Apple is the John Bascom Professor Emeritus of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. A former elementary and secondary school teacher and past-president of a teachers union, he has worked with educational systems, governments, universities, unions, and activist and dissident groups throughout the world to democratize educational research, policy, and practice. Professor Apple has written extensively on the politics of educational reform, on the relationship between culture and power, and on education for social justice. Among his recent books are: Can Education Change Society?; The Struggle for Democracy in Education: Lessons From Social Realities; and the enlarged 4th edition of his classic text Ideology and Curriculum.