AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST Learning “Merit” in a Chinese Preschool: Bringing the Anthropological Perspective to Understanding Moral Development Jing Xu ABSTRACT Moral development in early childhood has recently raised heightened interest across social sciences. Integrating controlled methods into ethnographic fieldwork, this article investigates how Chinese preschool children develop their understanding of “merit,” an important fairness principle in resource allocation, through socialization of biaoxian hao. Whereas the experimental data taps into distributing reward based on how much one contributes to collective work, a standard attribute of “merit” in psychology literature, ethnographic analysis reveals how chil- dren’s understanding of merit is mediated by the cultural discourse of biaoxian hao, a significant moral framework in contemporary China that refers to self-presentation in authority-evaluation contexts, with a hierarchical dimension. Ethnography further demonstrates the developmental trajectory of learning biaoxian hao and the powerful disci- plinary mechanism of overt social comparison and moral evaluation. By showing how two basic moral concerns, sensitivity to fairness and inclination to impress authority, intersect in early development in cultural contexts, this mixed-methods research provides a direction for cultural anthropology to contribute to the interdisciplinary study of moral development. [merit, fairness, biaoxian, moral development, China] RESUMEN El desarrollo moral en la ni ˜ nez temprana ha aumentado recientemente un acentuado inter ´ es a trav ´ es de las ciencias sociales. Integrando m ´ etodos controlados en el trabajo de campo etnogr ´ afico, este art´ ıculo investiga c´ omo ni ˜ nos chinos de preescolar desarrollan su entendimiento de “m ´ erito”, un principio importante de equidad en la asignaci ´ on de recursos a trav ´ es de la socializaci ´ on de biaoxian hao. Mientras los datos experimentales ganan acceso a la distribuci ´ on de recompensas basadas en cu ´ anto uno contribuye al trabajo colectivo, un atributo est ´ andar de “m ´ erito” en la literatura de psicolog´ ıa, el an ´ alisis etnogr ´ afico revela c ´ omo el entendimiento de m ´ erito de los ni ˜ nos es mediado por el discurso cultural de biaoxian hao, un marco moral significativo en la China contempor ´ anea que se refiere a la autopresentaci ´ on en contextos de autoridad-evaluaci ´ on, con una dimensi ´ on jer ´ arquica. La etnograf´ ıa adem ´ as demuestra la trayectoria del desarrollo del aprendizaje biaoxian hao y el mecanismo disciplinario poderoso de comparaci ´ on social abierta y evaluaci ´ on moral. Al mostrar c ´ omo dos preocupaciones morales b ´ asicas, sensibilidad a la equidad e inclinaci ´ on a impresionar a la autoridad, intersectan en el desarrollo temprano en contextos culturales, esta investigaci ´ on de m´ etodos mixtos provee una direcci ´ on a la antropolog´ ıa cultural para contribuir al estudio interdisciplinario del desarrollo moral. [m´ erito, equidad, biaoxian, desarrollo moral, China] AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 121, No. 3, pp. 655–666, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. C  2019 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/aman.13269