Title: Culture and high education in China

Authors: Kai Du, Yinyin Cai

Addresses: School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Juyuan 5-104, Jiulonghu Campus, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211189, China. ' School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Juyuan 5-104, Jiulonghu Campus, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211189, China

Abstract: This article analyses the relationship between culture and higher education in China with the help of the popular word |zhuangbility|, defined as a deliberate misleading during communication. Thus, a cost exists for searching for true information, which for many Chinese is too high, thus, forcing us to accept the veracity of a person|s initial statement without the requisite information to distinguish truth from falsity. This is the |soft knowledge| restraint. After first explaining the role of zhuangbility in ordinary Chinese culture, we use it to examine the inefficiencies of Chinese higher education. We conclude that in order to solve the problem of zhuangbility in China|s higher education, institutional reform including the construction of efficient incentives is essential.

Keywords: China; soft knowledge restraints; soft morality restraints; Chinese culture; zhuangbility; higher education; educational inefficiencies; institutional reform.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2010.037971

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2010 Vol.1 No.4, pp.317 - 321

Published online: 07 Jan 2011 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article