We know that entering a key middle school in a province or city will greatly improve the chances of getting ideal college entrance examination results and extra points. There is an important factor that determines whether students can enter key middle schools, and that is family background. In other words, students from different family backgrounds may stand at the starting line far apart and rush to the end of the college entrance examination.
Higher education has always been regarded as an important mechanism of social stratification. The social stratification mechanism of education may have begun long before the college entrance examination. Researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology made a detailed analysis of the influence of family background in this stratification process.
From the data itself, we can already see the important influence of family background. For example, 30% of the students in elite universities come from families with upper-middle or upper-class economic status, while the proportions in 2 1 1 universities and non-21universities are only 18.6% and 14.6% respectively. The proportion of students from rural areas or towns in elite universities is 19.2%, while in the other two types of universities, the proportion is 3 1% and 32.8% respectively.
The division of high school types is more obvious. Nearly 80% of the students in elite universities come from provincial or national key middle schools, and 16% come from key middle schools in cities and counties. Among non-2 1 1 universities, the proportion from the above two key middle schools is 39.4% and 38.5% respectively.
The data analysis further shows that students from provincial or national key middle schools are more likely to enter elite universities 10. 1 times than students from non-key middle schools, and 5.7 times more likely to enter 2 1 1 universities.
The chances of students from key middle schools at county and city level entering the two types of universities are 2.4 times and 2. 1 times higher than those from non-key middle schools, respectively, and the influence of preferential policies for extra points is also very obvious. The chances of students with preferential policies entering elite universities and 2 1 1 universities are 7 times and 1.5 times higher than those without preferential policies, respectively.
Family background also has an impact on college entrance examination scores and preferential policies. Students from upper-middle income and upper-class families scored significantly higher in the college entrance examination than students from lower-middle income families.
After all, in addition to the family's economic strength, students' personal ability will also have an important impact. In any case, we can see that family background has a significant impact on college entrance examination scores and whether they get preferential policies, which in turn affects students' chances of entering different types of colleges and universities.
Even under the relatively fair college entrance examination system, as Boueyre's classic analysis said, family background still plays a role in class reproduction. This means that if social stratification occurs before the college entrance examination, the reform of the college entrance examination system alone may not be enough.