SMLLC Research Colloquium Guest Lecture on 8 February 2023
All Welcome!
Topic: Affirmative Action Policies in College Admission in China
Time: Feb 8, 2023 01:00 PM London
Venue: Room 1.37 AHI, Iontas Building, North Campus
Join Zoom Online:
https://zoom.us/j/94360513981?pwd=SWVmQWFtdkIzUGpYdFl2WWZKWDNJZz09
Meeting ID: 943 6051 3981
Passcode: 318532
Affirmative Action Policies in College Admission in China
Fangmeng Tian, Minzu University of China
The Chinese government adopted affirmative action policies in the 1950’s, with the aim of raising the proportion of college students from worker and peasant families. After such practices were terminated in the late 1970’s, China began to initiate college admission policies by both quota and preference systems in order to favor ethnic minorities and residents in underdeveloped regions, as well as those in well-developed first-tier cities. For achieving new egalitarian goals, the Chinese government has been implementing new affirmative action programs expansively and intensively in the past decades. This research introduces the effects and costs of the preferential admission policies in contemporary China. It points out that affirmative action programs are effective in reducing higher educational inequality and promoting campus diversity. However, these programs have also led to considerable problems and dilemmas, such as lowering admission criteria, mistargeting individual beneficiaries, and causing identity fraud. The research also examines the rationale of egalitarianism ethically and empirically, and calls for a compromised policy option to address educational inequality in China.
Fangmeng Tian is an Associate Professor at Department of Sociology, Minzu University of China. He was awarded a PhD of public policy at George Mason University in the United States in 2012. Previously he studied at Renmin University of China and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interest includes skilled migration, social policy, biosocial study and history of social sciences, and he has published over 30 research articles, book chapters and book reviews in these areas. He is also a social commentator on the Chinese media.
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Affirmative Action in College Admission in China