Social Inequality in Educational Attainment in China

This study analyses social inequality in education in China, focusing on parental class effects on children’s educational attainment. While there is a massive increase in the state provision of educational opportunities, class differences persist and are becoming even more pronounced for the younger cohort. The growing social disparity as found in China is at odds with findings of trendless fluctuation or weakening inequality in the Western societies. It is argued that it is the growing socio-economic disparity in China as compared with the relative stability in class-lined conditions in the Western countries that may account for the different findings between this study and those by other scholars.