This book explores and interprets discourses and practices in school admissions to public lower secondary education in urban China by utilizing a discourse analysis approach and a case study method. It identifies continuities and changes in discourses shaped by diverse forces in public lower secondary school admissions in the context of China's social transformation from a profit-driven society to a more equitable society, and elucidates the power relationships among stakeholders in public school admissions by analysing their interplay in the process. More importantly, it exposes how current socio-economic, institutional and educational systems are shaping the engagement of stakeholders in the public school admissions process. It also presents some on-going projects intended to yield new policies and practices for more equitable public secondary education in China in the development stage of the post-2015.

Dr. Jing Liu is a JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Education. Before joining the University of Tokyo, Dr. Liu received his Doctoral Degree in International Development from the Graduate School of International Development, Nagoya University, Japan in 2013, where he subsequently served as an Assistant Professor from 2013 to 2017. His dissertation, titled "The Development of Inequality in Public School Admission: Public Discourses on Zexiao and Practices in Urban China" received the Best Dissertation Award from the Institute for International Studies in Education, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh, the US and the Asia Pacific Research Prize (Commendation) from the Asia Pacific Forum, Awaji Conference Japan in 2013. His research areas include sociology of education, international and comparative education, and education policy studies. He began his studies on education in 2007, and since then has accumulated considerable experience in researching educational development in China, East, and South-East Asia. His current research project examines education reform to promote resource sharing and school-to-school collaboration in urban China. In the past five years, Dr. Liu has published in leading international journals and chapters of book series. His latest article, titled "Constructing resource sharing collaboration for quality public education in urban China: Case study of school alliance in Beijing" will be published by The International Journal of Educational Development in March 2018.