Meritocracy and the Making of the Chinese Academe, 1912-1952

Abstract

This article takes advantage of three new big historical datasets to identify four salient features of the Chinese academe during the Republic of China. First, it was highly international in terms of training. Second, the proportion of female students was unexpectedly large. Third, there was a heavy emphasis on STEM subjects. Finally, the social and spatial origins of China's university students and university faculty members changed from a national population of civil servant families to business and professional families largely from Jiangnan and the Pearl River Delta. The datasets are the China University Student Dataset-Republic of China, which includes almost half of all students to graduate from a Chinese university during the first half of the 20th century; the China University Student Dataset-Overseas, which includes the vast majority of all Chinese students to graduate from a North American, European or Japanese university during this same period; and the China University Employee Dataset, which includes almost all university faculty members in China, 1941-1950.