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Literacy in China: The Effect of the National Development Context and Policy on Literacy Levels, 1949–79 . By Vilma Seeberg. [Bochum: Brockmeyer, 1990, 348 pp. DM44.80.]

examinations, as well as a carefully executed survey of six different types of secondary school in Yantai, Shandong province (reported in The China Quarterly No. 109, March 1987), leads the author to conclude that China has been no more successful than other countries in ensuring an equitable social distribution of opportunity to all classes through secondary education. Various reasons are given for this-including the lack of interest in research done on other developing countries related to the problems of making education vocational, the needs of the political leadership for support from an intellectual class alienated by radical egalitarianism in the Cultural Revolution decade, and a commitment to economic modernization with minimal necessary concessions to democratic participation. The result has been a move towards vocational training that has relieved some of the pressures on university entrance and prepared about 10 per cent of the age cohort at upper secondary level for modernization tasks, but failed to foster the "high practical skill level among peasants and common workers" (p. 155) needed for an effective connection between education and productive change at the grassroots. Thus the economic demands of modernization, given priority over concerns of social equity, have only been partially met. This generally pessimistic conclusion is moderated by a balanced historical assessment of the Cultural Revolution decade that indicates the lasting contribution it has made to the broadened accessibility of secondary education and by details on the participation of worker/peasant youth, as well as women, that show they are not entirely excluded from the competition for elite status.