Private education in China: case studies of private secondary schools
Authors:   , Chen Ximing 
Published: February 2025

Many Chinese students pursue advanced studies overseas through private international schools, which are distinguished from public schools by high fees. In the Chinese context, parents prioritize education spending to enhance their children's competitiveness and chances in a challenging educational environment. Most research on China's private education system focuses on the macro level to investigate educational inequality by comparing private schools with public schools in terms of teachers' welfare security, students' recruitment, and establishing key public schools. Relatively little research has been conducted on educational inequality brought about by the emergence of private international schools from individual perspectives, and a limited amount of research has explored institutionalised capital from students' perspectives in China. This study aims to investigate how the development of private international schools provides better higher education opportunities for students from middle-income household family backgrounds. Two case schools were selected in economically developed cities in different provinces. Guided by Bourdieu's cultural reproduction theory and Weber's social stratification theory, this research explores how the national and local policies impact the development of private education, and to what extent these different stakeholders in the two selected private schools believe that educational inequality is reproduced in the development of private international schools. In order to undertake a thorough review, different types of data sources were utilised, including desk-based research, quantitative surveys, and qualitative interviews. Empirically, the research provides a systematic review of current Chinese policies and regulations that influence the development of private education in China. It contributes to knowledge concerning private education in China through the identification of different geographical locations, different routes of sending students abroad, schools' training, parents' expectations of private schools, and students' experiences in school, which reflects on how private international schools generate educational inequality. Methodologically, this research is a multiple-case study approach using mixed methods to collect qualitative and quantitative data in private international schools with principals, teachers, parents, and students in different regions of China. This participatory approach, using case studies, allows for an insider perspective to help build rapport with potential participants, the collection of authentic and in-depth data, and positioning of the researcher to be able to reflect and avoid being methodologically subjective. Theoretically, the empirical evidence challenges the concept of meritocracy in the Chinese context. What this means is that students who cannot be admitted to famous local public high schools still have the opportunity to go to famous universities abroad by attending private international schools due to their parents' economic capital purchasing educational resources and privileges. This research utilises Bourdieu's theory on social reproduction where economically advantaged families can transfer their economic capital into children's cultural and institutionalized capital, culminating in the social advantages and educational privileges that private education can bring. Private schools have restructured their institutional habitus in ways similar to overseas universities. This means that although students may not have inherited middle-class family cultural capital as described in the existing Western literature, they can benefit from the enhanced institutionalised cultural capital to be found within private education establishments, thus leading to the reproduction of further education inequalities.