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Educational Success in Transitional China: The Gaokao and Learning Capital in Elite Professional Service Firms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2022

Ran Ren Open the ORCID record for Ran Ren [Opens in a new window]
Ran Ren*
Affiliation:
School of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China, and Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Email: r-ren_cufe@outlook.com.
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Abstract

Despite fruitful findings on the reasons underlying the desire for educational success and scarce credentials among students and families, there is little research on the meaning of educational success in the marketplace. As higher education in China has expanded to aid better-quality growth and the transition to a knowledge-based economy, educational success has become increasingly critical in the allocation of socioeconomic rewards. As such, insights into how educational success and concomitant credentials are valorized are empirically and theoretically significant. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 73 recruiters for elite professional service firms, this study analyses the meanings underlying the process of valorizing educational success and elite credentials. It shows that success in the gaokao, or entry to higher education, was qualitatively salient in excluding candidates, while information about subject domains and marks/class rank carried relatively less weight. Recruiters based the value of educational success on the notion of “learning ability,” which reflected their shared understandings about Chinese educational selection/institutions and wider conditions of elite professional firms. On this basis, this paper argues for the development of learning capital as a new theoretical lens for approaching educational success and credentials in transitional China.

摘要

摘要

尽管有丰富的研究关注学生和家庭追逐教育成功和稀缺学历的潜在动机和含义，针对教育成功在市场中含义的研究仍旧稀少。特别是在中国高等教育为了高质量增长和向知识经济转型而扩张且教育成功对于社会经济回报的分配有越发关键意义的背景下，关于教育成功和相应学历是如何被量价的洞见具有深刻的经验和理论意义。基于与73位精英专业服务企业的招聘人员的深度访谈，本文研究教育成功和精英学历在市场量价中的含义建构。此研究揭示了高考的成就或者说高等教育的准入对于筛除应届毕业生有着质性显著的意义，而专业背景和在校成绩的作用较小。雇主针对教育成功的市场价值的解读聚焦于应聘学生的“学习能力”。这个解读反映了雇主们对中国教育筛选/体制以及精英专业服务企业所处的社会经济环境的共同认识。依托本研究的发现，本文提出了发展“学习资本”这一新理论概念来帮助研究和理解教育成功以及学历在转型中国的作用和含义。

Keywords

gaokaocredentialselitesrecruitmentprofessional service firmslearning capitalChina高考学历精英招聘专业服务企业学习资本中国
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 252 , December 2022 , pp. 1277 - 1298
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

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