China´ s Universities and Social Change: Expectations, Aspirations, and Consequences

Abstract

Studies of higher education often assume that there is a close relationship between economic growth, social change, and political transformation. It is argued that economic growth leads not simply to a demand for the expansion of higher education but also an increase in social equity in admissions to uni-versities. Students become more radicalised through this process; and both through economic growth and the expansion of higher education, academic staff who are the core after all of a society's public intellectuals, also become the voice for political transformation. The evidence from the People's Republic of China is that while there has been massive economic growth during the last thirty years, and an equally dramatic expansion of higher education since 1997, the consequences for higher education in terms of social change have Artículo recibido el 23 de febrero de 2015 y dictaminado el 25 de abril de 2015.