Research in the Sociology of Education

In recent years, scholars, policy makers, and the popular press have hailed East Asian nations for their impressive educational performance. In China, dramatic expansions in education coincided with a period of dramatic growth in the youth population, setting the stage for a period of unprecedented economic growth (Fang & Wang, 2005; Hannum, Behrman, Wang, & Liu, 2008). Educational expansion in Korea during the past few decades has been remarkable, to the point that now Korea has the highest rate of college graduation in the world among young adult cohorts (Park, 2007). Korea and Japan have achieved some of the highest scores and lowest levels of inequality in comparative tests of achievement, although Japan has fallen in the rankings in recent years (OECD, 2008). The city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore commonly perform well in comparative tests, with Singapore's curriculum for math, in particular, singled out by some scholars and policy makers in the West as a model for emulation (Ginsburg, Leinwand, Anstrom, & Pollack, 2005). The effectiveness of primary and secondary education in East Asia is also reflected in the competitiveness of these students in global higher educational admissions. For example, in the United States, the most frequent destination for international postsecondary educational migration, China, Korea, and Japan alone account for 29.5% of total international student enrollment (Institute of International Education, 2009).