Educational Attainment in China after 1949 Essay

This essay is about the two readings involving research on educational attainment in China, particularly, the effects of state policies and social origins of people in China who are trying to obtain their education, on particular periods. We will begin by discussing the first research paper by Deng and Treiman. The Treiman paper discussed its intention to gather and analyze data to answer the three hypotheses, namely: 1) Effect on social origin in China as education expands, during the Cultural Revolution; 2) Considerable effect of educational attainment among the bureaucrats of China during the Cultural Revolution; and 3) Considerable effect of educational attainment to men of elitist background as compared to men of military or cadre background, during the Cultural Revolution (Treiman, 413) . The Treiman paper gathered and analyzed its data from a particular period of China’s census returns. The conclusion for the three hypotheses was in the affirmative. During Cultural Revolution, state policies was implemented to foster educational attainment among the youth of working class or peasant background, and has discriminated the youth of elitist background, thus proving the first theory true (Treiman, 424) . It should also follow the second theory as true as the data showed a decline of educational attainment among the elitist, and an increase of educational attainment among the peasants (Treiman, 424) . Incidentally, the data also showed that even the decline affects both elitist and cadres or with military background, much impact was felt by the elitist rather than the cadre, thus proving the third theory true (Treiman, 425) . In the second research, Zhou, Moen and Tuma measured the effects of educational attainment based on social origin on a more stretched period as compared to the Treiman paper. The Tuma paper explored four historical periods: The Great Leap Forward, Destratification Policies, Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Era. The Tuma paper further made use of interviewing respondents on particular cities for its data and to prove their hypothesis that socio-economic status was not a factor in attaining education, rather, political status dictated educational attainment during those four periods (Tuma, 201) . The results of the data showed the same as that of the results discussed with the Treiman paper. However, it does not particularly established its theory as true since the data results were varied, having educational attainment effects on all three classes in all historical periods (Tuma, 217) . The two papers indeed came with the same data results, that there are effects on educational attainment based on social origins. The papers differ in such ways as using specific topics. The Treiman paper was clear in its intention to answer its theories because its theories were more specific than the theory used by the Tuma paper. Treiman paper likewise used a specific Era, while the Tuma paper explored four periods, which could be quite confusing. Further, aside from using social origin as basis of the research, the Tuma paper dwelled on other basis such as gender inequality and geographical location, thus creating more confusion.