Credentialism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice— The Elitist Ethos of Chinese Universities and Its Contradiction with Massification

College of Education, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310000, China

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract

Since the end of 20th century, Chinese higher education has achieved a rocketing development from elitism to massification. However, behind the scale expansion, the alienation of elitism and credentialism and their conflicts with the concept of mass higher education have become increasingly severe. Based on the perspective of pedagogy, this study explored the formation logic, alienation mechanism of elitism and credentialism, as well as their impacts on higher education. Elitism has been alienated into a tool for class solidification through intergenerational transmission of cultural capitalism, while credentialism changes academic qualifications into the core criterion for measuring personal value. The mutual relationship between the two has deeply impacted on the university evaluation system and resource allocation system, shaping the elitist ethos of higher education. This ethos is incompatible with the inclusive and diverse demands of mass higher education, which is reflected in structural dilemmas such as dislocation of educational value, imbalance of resource allocation and simplification of evaluation system. To resolve this paradox, it is necessary to reconstruct the v alue orientation of higher education, establish a classified evaluation system, optimize the resource allocation mechanism, and promote the transformation of higher education from scale expansion to connotative development.