The Impact Of Social Stratification On The Opportunities Of Higher Educational Entrance

Since the reform and opening up policy, great changes have taken place in China’s social structure. The development of China’s economic is sustainable for 30 years. With the rapid development of economy, there have been some changes in the social structure of our country. The previous three strata (farmers, workers, cadres) began to divide and regroup, and the social group in contemporary China has been gradually divided into ten strata. In the process of social class differentiation there is a certain degree of out of control phenomenon that the gap between different social strata is more and more obvious. The gap mainly manifested in that different sectors have different the economic resources, cultural resources, social resources. In addition to the expansion of the gap, the social hierarchical system was increasingly consolid-ated after the strata regrouping. Education did not play its due role of promoting social mobility, and the way that the bottom of society changes their situation through education was blocked. On this background, the paper uses the occupation stratification theory, and the questionnaire was adapted from the questionnaire of the new students that designed by the Higher Education Research Institute of Xiamen University. The paper used the Stratification Mobility Rate of Higher Education Opportunity as the standard, and the freshman in four different universities in Kunming were investigated by questionnaire. Then the data were analyzed by SPSS 19.0, and verify the research hypothesis of this paper.Through data analysis, we can draw the following conclusions:1 the enrollment rate of the advantageous social strata was significantly higher than that disadvantaged social strata which in the bottom of the social structure; 2 in the high level school, the gap of higher education enrollment rate between different classes is obvious; 3 the family’s economic capital, cultural capital will have a certain impact on the higher education enrollment rate; 4 the family’s social relationship will also affect the rate of higher education. The results of the data analysis verify the assumptions of the previous research.Then, I explore that how social stratification affects the higher education opportunities of different strata from four aspects:system, economic, cultural, and social. In the current society, higher education should undertake the responsibility of promoting social mobility; therefore some measures must be taken to change the current situation of higher education unequal opportunity. I think we can through the reform of college entrance examination system and the charging system, establish and improve the student aid system, optimizing education resource allocation mechanism, intensify the supervision of the Department of education, narrowing the income gap between class and so on, to protect children from different social classes can enjoy equal opportunities for higher education entrance, and make higher education play its function to promote individual mobility.