**1. Human Capability Approach and Education Development**

As Yates summarized, the transition from human capital theory to human capability development theory will achieve an overall change in educational goals and assessment, thereby driving the innovation of educational practice [3]. Human-capital-oriented education regards development as "growth", pays attention to student learning achievements, and emphasizes the "input–output" evaluation system. Hence, the ratio of educational input to educational output is the key to determining the success of education practices. In this process, students themselves are invisible. Unlike the human capital approach, if education focuses on the development of individual capabilities, then the goal of education

**Citation:** Li, M.; Liu, M.; Wang, H.; Hong, X.; Wang, C. Research on the Development of Equitable Education in China from the Human Capability Perspective. *Educ. Sci.* **2023**, *13*, 738. https://doi.org/10.3390/ educsci13070738

Academic Editors: James Albright and John Traxler

Received: 29 May 2023 Revised: 29 June 2023 Accepted: 13 July 2023 Published: 19 July 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

is to promote individual freedom, and the initiative shown by individuals becomes a key factor in evaluating the success of education practices (see Table 1).


**Table 1.** Development discourses and quality learning.

In the above Table, 3C represents a richer form of learning, which regards learning as a consequence, construction and connection (3C); 3I means that this work needs short-term intervention supplemented by long-term institutionalization and sustained social interaction [3] (p. 3).

The capability approach is a theoretical framework that essentially highlights the neglected factors under human capital theory and reshapes the way education is reformed. And it has been widely used to study social inequality in education. According to this theory, people's development should be a process in which individuals regain their subjectivity, gain their capability and realize their cherished life. The application of this conceptual tool can help break the limitation of the human-capital-oriented approach and pursue the development of EE centered on developing people's capabilities.

Sen defines capability as "an optional combination of things that a person can do or can be, that is, various functions that he or she can achieve" [4] (p. 30). Opposing the view of traditional welfare economics that welfare is equal to utility, he thinks that there are two indispensable stages from welfare to utility: capability and function. Functions are realized results such as reading, while capability is the potential to realize these functions such as being taught to read and having books or newspapers to read. Therefore, the difference between capability and function is the difference between realized opportunity and actual achievement, or the difference between potential and result [5] (p. 4).

Sen further distinguished capability from function as follows [6] (pp. 34–35):


Therefore, a person's capability refers to an alternative combination of functions that they can realize. In other words, they have effective opportunities to engage in their voluntary actions and activities, to have freedom to realize various lifestyles and to become the person they want to be. The capability approach proposed by Sen has been widely accepted and applied because it considers human beings to be the goal, recognizes human heterogeneity and diversity, pays attention to group differences, accepts people's initiative and participation, and recognizes that different people, cultures and societies may have different values and aspirations [6] (p. 34).

The capability approach has important implications for social justice in education. First, education itself is a basic ability, which affects the development and expansion of other abilities [5] (p. 8). This means that if there is an absence or a lack of educational opportunities, essential harm and disadvantage is caused to individuals. Second, educational capability plays a substantial role in expanding other existing and future capabilities, so it is the basis of different capabilities and the possibility of living a better life. Third, the instrumentality and the intrinsic value of education itself can improve individual freedom, including freedom of well-being and freedom of initiative, which are emphasized by the capability approach [7] (pp. 30–31). Finally, in the educational application, human capability provides a set of conceptual tools to think about how to reduce injustices in the current education system and the wider society. As Hart (2012) explains, this set of tools allows us to think creatively about the role, process, and content of education, broadening our horizons beyond the limitations of standardized testing, neoliberal discourse, and quantitative policy directives [8] (p. 278). In this way, we can transcend the limitations of human capital, truly think about the goals and values of education from the perspective of human freedom and human ability development itself, and improve educational inequality.

It is on this basis that many scholars prefer the concept of "educational capability". It refers to offering students with low socio-economic status (SES) rights and information so that they can choose the educational path they value. Cliona pointed out that education reform should aim at expanding human capability and providing activities for students with a low SES to help them fill the gaps in their social and cultural capital [9] (p. 70), since such gaps determine the size of their "capability set" to some extent. Furthermore, education provides opportunities for individuals to transform their capabilities into functions, which is particularly critical to the educational problems faced by vulnerable groups in many low-income countries [10] (p. 395). This means that improving the education of vulnerable groups actually requires us to pay attention to whether the education received by the disadvantaged groups can improve their capability, whether the ability of the disadvantaged group has been freely developed, and whether they can choose the life they want to live with the ability acquired. In other words, equity in education is ultimately a kind of equity in competence.

Although human capability is an important supplementary framework for the research and formulation of the EE policy in China, it is still lacking in partitionable grounds. Most scholars regard it as a theoretical tool to analyze and discuss poverty governance and social welfare issues, and lack the awareness of using action research concepts to solve local problems, failing to form the theoretical connotation and the practical system of feasible ability with local vitality.

Research shows that human capability theory can be an effective tool to promote equitable education development. According to a nationwide empirical study on education satisfaction, people are paying more attention to capability equity than resource equity when it comes to education distribution, and are more concerned about the equity within the organization and the equity that is more closely related to their current experience than the equity in distribution and the equity between organizations, such as narrowing the gap between schools and integrating urban and rural education [11] (p. 39). Meanwhile, capability theory pays more attention to the EE of specific individuals. The realization of such equity depends not only on educational resources and results, but also on the expansion of students' capability or the enhancement of students' initiative through education.

Therefore, based on the current research of human capability theory and troubled practices, we believe that in order to better employ the human capability theory to solve the problem of equitable development of education in the Chinese context, we should further combine actionable research approach to explore feasible ideas of capability expansion, achieve the social welfare needs of the target group, provide a basis for the introduction of relevant social welfare policies, and help the sustainability of China's social welfare needs. On this basis, we also need to develop appropriate solutions to improve educational equality through actionable research to explore feasible capability expansion at the educational

level, both theory-wise and practice-wise; this is the core topic of this research. We aim to promote the development of educational equity through actionable research to expand the viable capabilities of individuals and call for more research investment.
