Rural Education In China S Social Transition

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the People's Republic of China experienced dramatic growth and expansion that altered the educational environment of children. Rapid economic development increased prosperity and educational opportunities for children expanded in a wealthier society. Yet, a by-product of rising wealth was rising inequality. While the children of the emerging urban middle and elite classes enjoyed new prosperity, the children of hte persistently poor in rural communities continued to experience challenges such as food insecurity, illness, hardships of family separation, and migrant life on the margins of the cities. This time period saw a large resource gap emerge between the home conditions of poor rural children compared with those of their wealthier urban counterparts. This book highlights the complexities China has experienced in seeking to extend full educational access to rural children— including rural- to- urban migrant and ethnic minority children—during a momentous period in China. Chapters delve into the experiences, perceptions, strategies, and diffi culties of rural- origin children and their families in the school system, and lay bare the challenges of policy initiatives designed to support rural education. We hope the experiences detailed here will be of interest to students and scholars of rural educational policy and practice in China and worldwide.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the People's Republic of China experienced dramatic growth and expansion that altered the educational environment of children. Rapid economic development increased prosperity and educational opportunities for children expanded in a wealthier society. Yet, a by-product of rising wealth was rising inequality. While the children of the emerging urban middle and elite classes enjoyed new prosperity, the children of hte persistently poor in rural communities continued to experience challenges such as food insecurity, illness, hardships of family separation, and migrant life on the margins of the cities. This time period saw a large resource gap emerge between the home conditions of poor rural children compared with those of their wealthier urban counterparts. This book highlights the complexities China has experienced in seeking to extend full educational access to rural children— including rural- to- urban migrant and ethnic minority children—during a momentous period in China. Chapters delve into the experiences, perceptions, strategies, and diffi culties of rural- origin children and their families in the school system, and lay bare the challenges of policy initiatives designed to support rural education. We hope the experiences detailed here will be of interest to students and scholars of rural educational policy and practice in China and worldwide.

This book examines how educational change has progressed in three contrasting areas spread across China since 1990, exploring key issues concerning rural education in poor, rich and minority areas. Of the three areas covered in this book, the first is a rich one near Beijing; the second is in the northwest in Shanxi on the Loess plateau; and the third is in Sichuan on the high plateau leading to Tibet. Central issues include the impact of large-scale demographic change and migration, with increasing numbers of left-behind children in sending areas, and large increases in the numbers of inbound migrants in receiving areas; dramatic increases in the boarding of children in rural areas as a result of rural school merge; changing patterns of teacher deployment; recentralization of responsibilities for school financing; and growing concerns regarding horizontal and vertical inequalities in both access and participation.

Liu and Cowan offer a unique in-depth study of educational development and social transformation in rural China. It foregrounds identifiable settings and personalities, engaging readers with the voices and experiences of people who are involved with the education system. This book explores the link between educational transformation and local economic regeneration. The research covers important phases of the educational development programme outlined by the County’s tow five-year education plans. It records a wide range of perspectives on Chinese rural education from stakeholders engaged with the education service. It reveals the contingent and different factors that lie behind the complex pattern of the educational development process. This research also illustrates how education policy is administered and driven forward through the local officers working closely with school leaders. This intriguing look at rural Chinese educational development will interest academics and students specializing in the study of education and international development, Chinese education and society, education policy studies and modern China studies

This book summarizes and explores the development model and path of rural education in China, while also describing how small-scale schools can replicate this low-cost local experience. As the “nerve endings” of Chinese education system, rural small-scale schools have unique important values in guaranteeing equity in education and serving the compulsory education in rural areas. This book presents ten vivid stories of the transforming path of rural small-scale schools in China. It shows how the rural small-scale schools acted according to circumstances to enhance education quality, how they broke through the difficult situation and improved, and how they achieved the status of ‘small and beautiful’ and ‘small and good’. It explores a new path for rural education reform and aims to provide some inspirations on rural and urban education development.

Market reform, financial decentralization, and economic globalization have greatly accentuated China's social and regional inequalities. Education is expected to address these inequalities in a context of rapid social change, including the rise of an urban middle class, changed status of women, resurgence of ethnic identities, growing rural to urban migration, and lingering poverty in remote areas. But some argue that state policies have not sufficiently addressed inequitable practices, and that schools actually perpetuate and reproduce inequities, giving rise to a new system of social stratification driven more by market forces than socialist principles. Featuring all original, previously unpublished material, this volume examines this argument through analysis of selected aspects of educational stratification in China during the reform era. Chapters focus on the new urban middle class, poor rural residents, the migrant population in urban areas, rural girls, and ethnic minorities. The contributors are established scholars in the field, and they build a conceptual framework for assessing the degree to which China's educational reforms are inclusive, equitable, and integrative across social categories and groups.

This book presents a study in educational sociology, exploring the function of rural schools, which are a symbol of the state in rural society, in a time characterized by local cultural transition. The book begins with an investigation of the status quo, background and history of a representative rural school, Fengning Hope Elementary School, and gives a definition of “the ‘states’ in villages.” Subsequently, on the basis of research on the teachers, an analysis of the courses taught, and comparison to other rural elementary schools of the same type, it reveals the dual status of rural schools and their relation with social development in rural areas. Based on thorough fieldwork and empirical research, the book provides a new vision of the interactive relation between the state and rural society, particularly focusing on the role of rural education in that relation. In addition, it explores the reshaping of Chinese culture and the part that intellectuals play in the process of today’s cultural transition. For English-language readers and Western professionals, this translated version will offer an essential window into Chinese studies from a local point of view.

Recent dramatic developments in China have increased Western interest in both her institutions and her politics. However, most of the studies dealing with the 'new' China tend to concentrate on recent events, leaving undocumented, particularly, the years between the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949 and the onset of the Cultural Revolution. To supplement this gap in the literature, Dr. Julia Kwong here examines the workings of a crucial institution— education—during this period in China's history. The years from 1949 to 1966 saw swings from one educational policy to another, as proponents with differing views on how to achieve a true socialist state gained or lost ascendancy. The reciprocal key influence on each other of the economy and the educational system is Professor Kwong's focus. A deliberate attempt is made to evaluate critically the Chinese educational system in its cultural context, thus avoiding the pitfall of superimposing Western theoretical assumptions and biases on Chinese data. Part I of the work details Chinese educational philosophy, the organization of the educational institutions, and the economic and social infrastructure established since 1949. Part II analyses the educational developments from the Great Leap Forward to the eve of the Cultural Revolution. The interaction between ideology, objective conditions, and power politics at both decision-making and implementation levels is discussed in detail, as are their various roles in shaping educational policy, and, consequently, the lives of the children concerned.