Meritocracy in China’s Education System: An Oral Historical Research of Teachers in Key Schools

• In Event: Poster session III
  In Poster Session: Poster session 3

Proposal

Meritocracy and the related challenge to elitism is a perplexing issue. Many recent studies challenged the idea of meritocracy and the widely held belief of “the American dream” associated with the idea of merit. Critics argued that merit has been used by the upper class in society to justify and reproduce their desert of priorities, which will do harm to the principle of justice for the whole population. Among other things, the core word “merit” is the most controversial part of the debate. When some people believe that merit only relates to individual talent and effort, some others think that merit also associated with one’s priorities or simply luck. According to Bourdieu, students’ achievement on academic subjects that require talent and gifts with possession of considerable inherited cultural capital is more often used by educational institutions to recognize elite. When Michael Young first introduced the term “meritocracy” in his epical work “the Rise of Meritocracy”. A formula of merit was summarized by Young and later be paraphrased by Gad Yair from Young’s book that merit is the sum of intelligence plus effort. M=I+E (where M is merit, I is Intelligence, and E is effort). This formula demonstrates that merit includes two parts: the content of merit and the practice to realize merit.
In the context of China, meritocracy stands in the middle of neutrality between left and right. It is both the challenge and support to social mobility. for many families who suffered a lot from radical social changes during socialist movement and the Cultural Revolution, meritocracy is the legitimated way of getting up the social ladder without abrupt changes to social orders. They believe that strict examinations are not only the way to select capable people but also by far the most efficient way to facilitate social justice. On the other side of the coin, the elite class of the country, especially those with the state power, could use their social background and network to reproduce their priority under the name of meritocracy. Without political transparency and with severe press censorship, the discourse of meritocracy unbalanced favored those previously advantaged groups thus hinder social mobility.
This study looks into the meaning of “merit” in different social settings. China has a long history of practicing meritocracy through imperial exams. On the other hand, it is still a socialist country according to political ideology, while capitalism developed in China in recent decades, which created the world second largest economy. What is the content of merit in China? How is merit recognized and produced in the education system of China? Those questions made the research of meritocracy in China intriguing. Through the analysis of Chinese history on the content and practices of merit, the main argument for this dissertation is that: Meritocracy is an ideology for governance. The meaning of “merit” has changed over time and influenced by the power relations in a particular social setting. The standards for being an “elite” is also contextual and has evolved over time. Not only to warning the danger of using meritocracy as a way of perpetuating existing inequality, but this study also views merit as an ever-changing concept and argued that the meaning of merit has changed over time, depending on cultural and institutional. This study seeks to learn about teachers’ view on meritocracy, and how their conceptions and views on meritocracy result in their everyday practices in schools for producing, recognizing and awarding individual merit in contemporary China’s key schools. Oral historical interview is the primary research method. This approach will provide information that has changed over time during China’s transition from Mao’s age to the present. Thirteen teachers, who have been working in the education system of China since the beginning of the 1980s, and who have worked as teachers in China’s key (magnetic/elite) schools (including higher education intuitions) were selected as participants for this study. Each of the teachers was interviewed about their life experiences, family background, education, career, and their thoughts on meritocracy. Teachers are the actors who recognize and produce individual merit in their daily work. It is important to understand how teachers’ perception of meritocracy was shaped by the changing historical and cultural contexts; how beliefs in meritocracy have changed in mainland China from the perspective of schoolteachers and educators in educational institutions; and how their conceptions and views on meritocracy result in their everyday practices in schools.

Author

• Yao Chen, Loyola University Chicago