The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of social class and gender on elite doctoral school access equality in China. Noticing that current literature on school access concentrates either on normative evaluation or practical explanations of equality, I put forward a theoretical framework combining Sen’s Capability Approach (CA) with Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory to bridge the gap. The theoretical framework suggests that capability should be the metric to measure elite doctoral school access equality, and we need a context-specific capability list to put this metric into practice. In addition, when utilising the capability list, we should look not at the distribution of capabilities but their development, whose achievement requires relevant resources and chances to convert them.
Guided by the theoretical framework, I conducted a case study involving China’s four most elite economics doctoral schools. A list of five basic capabilities was first generated through document analysis, focus group discussion and literature review. These capabilities were used as the metric to measure social class and gender equality regarding elite economics doctoral school access in China. Then, twenty-two doctoral students and eight supervisors were interviewed to comprehend how social class and gender shape students’ experiences of developing identified capabilities. Bourdieu’s notions of capital, habitus, and fields and Sen’s concept of agency were applied to interpret the collected data.
Evidence from this study demonstrates that disadvantaged doctoral students face not only a shortage of resources but also a shortage of opportunities to convert resources into relevant capabilities due to their social class and gender backgrounds. Their access to elite doctoral schools requires additional support from the agency. Although they could also be a successful doctoral applicant, compared to their counterparts, behind the seemingly similar success lies more unpleasant experiences and formidable difficulties.