Studying Education and Policy of Chinese Political Elite at Hamilton College

[Harold Schiffman]

Kaitlin Britt '09 Studying Education and Policy of Chinese Political Elite
Contact: Holly Foster
Phone: (315) 859-4068
August 6, 2008


For Kaitlin Britt '09 (Charleston, S.C.), summer research, following a
junior year with the Associated Colleges in China program, has been
one more step in pursuing a long-held interest. Britt came to Hamilton
because of its Chinese language program, she says, and spending a year
in Beijing pursuing intensive language study, learning 150-200
characters a day, was exactly the opportunity she wanted. Her
developing language skills allowed her to learn more about Beijing, as
well. "Being in touch with language helps," she explains, since her
knowledge of Chinese allowed her to talk to people herself, rather
than basing her opinions solely on what she heard on the news.

One of Britt's favorite things to do in Beijing was to take a cab and
talk to the driver. "They are very knowledgeable about the city and
how things have changed there," she says. From her conversations, she
conceived the idea for a summer research project supported by the
Levitt Research Fellows Program, originally to study popular attitudes
about democracy and economic progress. After finishing her program in
China and returning to Hamilton, Britt discussed the project with her
collaborating professor, Lecturer in Government David Rivera, and
refined her topic to study one aspect of Chinese political trends –
looking at the relationship between the educational backgrounds of
China's leaders and their policies for the country.

Britt explains that although educational experience is only one of the
factors in a leader's political priorities, it is useful to study how
the connection plays a part in national policy. "By looking at one
aspect – the elites – you can get an idea where the country will be
headed," she says. Britt points to a shift in leaders' backgrounds
over the 20th century as evidence. Before the Cultural Revolution,
many leaders did not receive a higher education, but gradually a trend
emerged where more members of the political elite had backgrounds in
engineering and technology. Now, Britt says, many leaders are
Western-educated, with degrees in law and the humanities from elite
colleges and universities.

Having taken a break in her research to volunteer for a month in a
Peruvian orphanage, Britt has only recently returned to start
investigating the second phase of her project, how elite education
affects policy. She has collected information on a broad swath of
China's political leaders ("I have a massive Excel spreadsheet," she
says), but she may refine her work further, focusing in greater detail
on the top policymakers, nine members of the Chinese Politburo.

Britt says that aside from the challenge of focusing her project to a
more specific, manageable topic, her major obstacle has been finding
the information she needs and knowing whether it is legitimate. "The
Chinese government is not necessarily known for its openness," she
explains, and it can be a struggle to find concrete information on the
backgrounds of the political leaders. However, Britt says she was
surprised to find that so many in the political elite had been
educated in Western universities, since she had expected to find
reluctance about Western influence. She is also investigating the
leaders' geographic backgrounds, and has found that many come from the
economically booming coastal cities, leaving much of China
underrepresented.

For her senior thesis project, Britt hopes to use her research this
summer and broaden the topic to include work she did while she was in
China, perhaps focusing more directly on economic issues. As a double
major in Chinese and Spanish, Britt hopes to attain an M.B.A. to work
in international marketing. "I want a job where I speak more Chinese
and Spanish in a day than English," she says.

http://www.hamilton.edu/news/more_news/display.cfm?ID=14315

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