The Impact of Education Systems on Chinese Students’ Social Preference for Fairness and Altruism

Abstract

Education development in China has been a topic of discussion for both professionals and the general public for decades. While the academic aspects of the two existing education systems in the country have been widely compared, there has been a lack of research on the social aspects. This paper aims to fill this gap by investigating whether the different education systems in China impact high school students’ social preferences for altruism and fairness. The study's data concluded that education systems significantly impact a student’s altruistic preferences, with public school students tending to be more altruistic. Interestingly, education systems do not have any apparent impact on social preference for fairness. These results provide a novel perspective on how different education methods and environments affect an adolescent’s social preferences, which is significant in both pedagogics and psychology. The results were derived from analyzing the answers of 212 respondents collected in the form of an online questionnaire.