Reciprocal Effects of Parental Meritocratic Beliefs and Children’s Educational Performance in China

• In Event: 1552 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 6: Education in East Asia

Abstract

Different research traditions have long held that parental beliefs motivate children’s educational achievement. However, regarding meritocratic beliefs, sociologists often argue that meritocratic narratives
legitimize and make sense of societal inequalities as justly deserved. Using the case of China, I simultaneously tested these two competing
hypotheses of the relationship between parental perception of meritocracy and children’s educational achievement. Parental beliefs about skills and hard work as predictors of higher grades were identified.
I analyzed data from the first and second waves of the China Educational Panel Survey. Autoregressive cross-lagged structural models indicated that parental meritocratic beliefs do not affect children’s educational performance but, rather, meritocratic beliefs are affected by academic
results, suggesting their justificatory role. This pattern is much sharper in rural China, where traditional Chinese culture is preserved. The
implications of meritocratic beliefs for a broader discussion of citizens’ beliefs about social inequalities and stratification are discussed

Author

• Francisco Olivos, The Chinese University of Hong Kong