Bounded Rationality And The Expression Of "Mianzi": Choosing Educational Opportunities Entering High Schools For Their Children

With economy developing, living condition improving, the education opportunities increasing, it is more available to get more and better chances of education, meanwhile, the competition of entering high schools is getting more and more fierce. What kind of choices does the self-employed group make for their children? Are there any common characteristics, or something different from other social groups? And why? Do they make the choice in a common logic? What social structural forces and factors influence their choice? This paper focuses the research on this group living in the towns of Shaoxing. In this paper, quantitative and qualitative research methods are combined, capital-field-habitus theory (by Pierre Bourdieu) and Human capital theory (by Theodore W. Schultz), and "mianzi" culture are applied to make the in-depth analysis.The paper is composed of seven different chapters. The first chapter is introduction. The researches on educational choices are reviewed, and then the academic hypothesis is put forward. In the second chapter, the research approach is introduced. According to making research on a group, it is necessary to have a general idea of the group and how the factors affecting the strategy, then make a deep exploration to the mental process behind their behavior, therefore, the approaches of survey, semi-structured depth interview and participative observation are used together. The development of private economy in Shaoxing and the characteristic of the self-employed group is introduced in the third part, which is the foundation of the further study. Chapter 4 explains how the factors influence the process of choice and the chief characteristics of their behavior. Factor analysis (SPSS) is applied to get the common factors from the previous 19 factors. Based on them, the next two chapters are the extension of this part. Chapter five examines the common logic of choice. In the chapter, the paper holds that the behavior of the self-employed group is of bounded rationality by analyzing their understanding of the education investment cost, the profits (including the economic capital, cultural capital and the social capital) and the risk. Chapter six discusses the choice behavior and the expression of "mianzi". Based on the background of "mianzi" culture and the stratum field where the self-employed group live and take actions, it is proved that thinking highly of "mianzi" is the habitus of this group, and gaining more cultural capital is of the effective way for them to obtain "mianzi". So the paper concludes that choosing education opportunities for their children is just the expression of "mianzi" guided by their habitus.