Revisiting the School Effectiveness Debate in Chinese Middle Schools

• In Event: 523 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 11. School Context and Characteristics: Session II

Abstract

The study revisits the debate of school effectiveness between “academic press” and “schools as communities” in the Chinese context, where high levels of academic orientation and academic press are widely spread throughout the nation. Capitalizing on the first nationally representative school-based data from China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) in 2013-2014 and focusing on 19,487 students in 112 junior-high middle schools, the study found positive impacts of communitarian aspects on both cognitive ability and academic attachment, and supportive role of academic press in cognitive development but mixed impact on attachment, contrasting to the positive role of “academic press” and mixed role of “communitarian” in the U.S. context. In addition, the joint relationship between academic press and communitarian and its impact on students’ outcomes are unexpected, depending on whether “communitarian” is measured at organizational or individual level, implying potentially reduced effectiveness of both high academic standards and strict organizational principle in cognitive development and school attachment in the Chinese context.

Author

• Xiao Yu, Johns Hopkins University