Unequal Learning - Education and Society in Contemporary China

Despite a nominal commitment to creating a classless society, the People's Republic of China is a deeply unequal one. And the reproduction of inequality begins early in the life cycle: schools. In Unequal Learning, Xin Xiang analyzes the different kinds of learning that goes on in four drastically different Chinese schools: a rural school in a mountainous area; a public school in an impoverished region of an emerging city; a low-cost private school serving rural migrants; and a prestigious metropolitan public school that attracts the children of elite professionals and government officials. As she shows, the different learning opportunities available in these four communities contribute to the widening gulf between the rising metropolitan middle class and China's working classes. Within classrooms, children in urban elite schools experience pedagogies drastically different from those in less privileged communities, despite the common preoccupation with preparing for exams. Outside clas