Educational researchers have long been concerned about the factors that influence the patterns of attendance in higher education and the extent to which higher education has been accessible to all students regardless of their socioeconomic status. Extensive research has indicated that a variety of class-related factors, such as cultural capital, social capital, and economic capital, exert remarkable impacts on the amount and type of education that one receives. Drawing on cultural capital theory, this study aims at analyzing how students' college choice process varies by social class in China. By exploring different cultural and financial factors that influence different stages of students' college choice process, this study hopes to contribute to identifying the most appropriate policies and practices for raising the representation of students from the lowest social class among college participants.

This monograph highlights the educational experiences of rural children who are 'left behind' by their migrant worker parents in China, analyzing how this situation impacts on their aspirations and self-identity. Via an ethnographic and qualitative case study of a rural school in southwest China, the author presents the real lives of these disadvantaged children along with their challenges and needs, and provides an in depth understanding of how being ‘left behind’ impacts on their future aspirations. Building on the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu, the author makes an original contribution by combining seemingly incompatible disciplinary perspectives, such as cultural capital from sociology, rational action from behavioral economics, and self-efficacy from psychology. Hence, the book endeavors to transfer these Western theories to an Eastern context and demonstrates cultural nuances that are not always captured when applied in the West. The book will attract academic scholars and postgraduate students in the area of socially disadvantaged children and young people as well as those who are working on youth studies and rural education.

This book combines the ideologies of parentocracy and consumer theory as theoretical lenses to view the private supplementary tutoring, also known as shadow education, with a focus on the demand at primary and lower secondary levels in China. It first explains parents’ motivations of seeking private tutoring and their decision-making dynamics, and then explores the evolving micro-level process of demand that has changed over time. It further investigates how demand for private tutoring varies across parental socioeconomic status. This book also discusses parents’ attitudes towards the Double Reduction policy and corresponding changes in their demand for tutoring. It concludes with some implications for regulating private tutoring and for improving school education. This book has pertinence in other countries as well as in China. Unpacking the demand for tutoring improves understanding of the global expansion and changing shapes of the phenomenon. Researchers, educational policy-makers, teachers, tutors, consultants, and other educational practitioners interested in the topic of private tutoring will find this work thought-provoking, instructive and informative.

Given the increasing global interest in Chinese culture, this book uses case studies to describe and interpret Chinese cultivation in contemporary Taiwanese schools. Cultivation is a concept unique to Chinese culture and is characterized by different attitudes towards teaching and learning compared to Western models of education. The book starts with a discussion of human nature in Chinese schools of philosophy and levels of goodness. Following the philosophical background is a presentation of how cultivation is practiced in Chinese culture from prenatal through high school education. The case studies focus both on how students are cultivated as they become members of Chinese society, and on what role teachers play in cultivating the children in school. In addition, supports from Chinese educational institutions, including public schools, families, and organizations such as private cram schools, are introduced and explained. In closing, the book presents a critique of the modern school reform movement and the conflicts between the reform proposals and traditional practices. Based on the collective work of Taiwanese researchers in the fields of education, history and anthropology, the book identifies the purpose of education as cultivating virtue in a process of creating an ideal person who serves society, and describes the way teachers have carried on this tradition despite its faltering status in contemporary educational discourse and in the face of reform movements.

In this book the authors offer their unique perspectives on the important roles Chinese students and intellectuals played in the shaping of the twentieth-century China. Their answers to these pivotal questions explore new nationalistic spirit, modern world-views, and willingness of self-sacrifice, which had attributed to the spontaneous actions of the students as a “New Culture” emerged during the May Fourth Movement. These articles show how China nurtured these spontaneous student movements, even though the Nationalist Party in the Republic of China and the Communist Party in the People’s Republic had exerted tight control over schools. Both governments established organizations as well as operations among students that effectively turned some of the student movements into a political instrument by the parties for their own agenda.

In the era marked by globalization and its profound impacts on individuals, societies, states and markets, world-class universities need to position themselves in the forefront of seeking conceptual and practical solutions to daunting challenges by paying greater attention to their roles in serving local society and contributing to global common goods. Based on the findings of the Seventh International Conference on World-Class Universities, World-Class Universities: Towards a Global Common Good and Seeking National and Institutional Contributions provides updated insights and debates on how world-class universities will contribute to the global common good and balance their global, national and local roles in doing so.

Much of the existing research on parental involvement and higher education choice examines the difference between the working class and the middle class, but little literature looks at different factions within the social classes. This book discusses higher education choice in China, particularly through the examination of social issues such as social stratification, parental involvement, and gender and educational inequality. Drawing from an empirical study based on Bourdieu’s theory, the book explores both inter-class and intra-class differences in China, providing an insight into how social class differences influence a number of issues, including: educational equality the role parents, especially mothers, play in higher education decision-making the relationship between traditional cultural norms gendered relationships within Chinese families. The sociology of higher education choices are derived through feedback from various sources, including both parents and students themselves. The book will be key reading for postgraduates and researchers in the fields of sociology, sociology of education, Chinese studies and Asian studies.