Buch, Englisch, 245 Seiten
The Survival of Minban Secondary Schools in Mainland China
Buch, Englisch, 245 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-4438-5168-8
Verlag: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
The study shows that the re-emergence of free market principles, the decentralization of government and the accompanying segmentation of power and authority, bureaucratic and consumerist expectations of teachers, and the commodification of education have engendered an increasingly fragmented institutional environment, which allowed minban schools to thrive. The book reveals that the institutional environment is multi-faceted and ambiguous: during China’s controlled decentralization, organizations and institutions have shaped each other.
Minban schools adopt various strategies to cope with institutional pressure. This study provides a systematic understanding of the operation of minban schools by locating the schools in a ‘differential order’, which determines their choice of strategy: international schools choose isolation; privately funded schools, avoidance; affiliated schools, advocacy; and converted schools, capitalization. It also illustrates how the bureaucracy functions in China’s local governments. The various case studies confirm that the government still maintains substantial control over minban schools through the power granted by the bureaucratic structure, which allows them to direct the institutional environment by introducing new regulations and forms of governance.