The Role of Social Capital/'Guanxi' in Students' Decision-Making about Postgraduate Education in China: An Explorative Case Study

This paper explores how the concept of social capital developed by Bourdieu and Coleman as well as the Chinese concept of "guanxi" ([foreign characters omitted]) or relationships facilitates students' access to postgraduate education in a case study of a university in southeast China. The study comprises an initial survey of 381 first-year postgraduate students and a series of interviews with 30 participants. Social capital and "guanxi" inform analysis of the data. The results reveal that students from different social backgrounds employ different forms of social capital and "guanxi" networks in their decision-making about postgraduate education. They contribute to conceptualizations of how social capital is generated through "guanxi" in the Chinese educational context.