The Education Of Migrant Children And China S Future

There are more than 225 million rural-to-urban migrant workers, and some 20 million migrant children in Chinese cities. Because of policies related to the household registration (hukou) system, migrant students are not allowed a public high school education in the cities, so their urban education stops abruptly at the end of middle school. This book investigates the post-middle school education and labor market decisions of migrant students in Beijing and Shanghai, and provides a glimpse into the future of a crucial link in China’s development. The stories of how these migrant students seek upward mobility and urban citizenship also reveal one of the most intricate structural inequalities in China today. Based on quantitative data collected from middle schools in Beijing and Shanghai, and ethnographic data drawing on in-depth interviews with migrant children, their parents, and teachers, this book offers a portrait of the migration and educational experiences and prospects of second generation migrant youth in China today. It explores the urban experience of migrant students, contrasting it with that of local city youngsters, examining the migrant students’ family backgrounds, family dynamics, neighborhood and school experience, and interaction with locals. It goes on to look at the migrant students’ education and career aspirations, the structural obstacles preventing their fulfilment, and how migrant families respond to institutional constraints on educational opportunity. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of policy implications and offers proposals for resolving the dilemmas of migrant youth. This book will of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese studies, Asian education, migration and social development.

The true measure of any society is how it treats its children, who are in turn that society’s future. Making use of data from the longitudinal Chinese Family Panel Studies survey, the authors of this timely study provide a multi-faceted description and analysis of China’s younger generations. They assess the economic, physical, and social-emotional well-being as well as the cognitive performance and educational attainment of China's children and youth. They pay special attention to the significance of family and community contexts, including the impact of parental absence on millions of left-behind children. Throughout the volume, the authors delineate various forms of disparities, especially the structural inequalities maintained by the Chinese Party-state and the vulnerabilities of children and youth in fragile families and communities. They also analyze the social attitudes and values of Chinese youth. Having grown up in a period of sustained prosperity and greater individual choice, the younger Chinese cohorts are more independent in spirit, more open-minded socially, and significantly less deferential to authority than older cohorts. There is growing recognition in China of the importance of investing in children’s future and of helping the less advantaged. Substantial improvements in child and youth well-being have been achieved in a time of growing economic prosperity. Strong political commitment is needed to sustain existing efforts and to overcome the many obstacles that remain. This book will be of considerable interest to researchers of Chinese society and development.

​Winner of the AERA Division B Outstanding Book Recognition Award This book examines the dynamics surrounding the education of children in the unofficial schools in China’s urban migrant communities. This ethnographic study focuses on both the complex structural factors impacting the education of children attending unofficial migrant children schools and the personal experiences of individuals working within these communities. As the book illustrates in careful detail, the migrant children schools serve a critical function in the community by serving as a hub for organized collective action around shared grievances related to issues of education, employment, wellbeing, and other social rights. In turn, the development of a collective identity among teachers, students, parents, and other members in the migrant communities makes it possible for activists to begin to working to address multiple forms of discrimination and maltreatment while simultaneously moving towards the possibility of more profound social transformation.

This book investigates the implementation of the education policy for migrant children, arguing that it has been selectively implemented: while some policy themes have been effectively implemented, others have not. Four factors underlie this selective implementation: specificity of policy goals, funding for education, local incentives in an exam-oriented education system, and intergroup relationships between migrant and urban children.

Educating the Children of Migrant Workers in Beijing is a timely book that addresses the gap in the provision of basic education to migrant children in China. It examines the case of Beijing, with a focus on policy implementation at the municipal and district levels and its impacts on migrant schools and their students. Rural migrant workers in the cities usually lack local hukou (household registration) and face serious obstacles in accessing basic social services, including schooling for their children. The educational situation of these children, however, can vary both across and within localities, and, despite policies and regulations from the central government, there have emerged broad and sometimes even extreme differences in the implementation of these policies at the local levels. This book uses evidence from qualitative interviews and the analysis of policy documents and materials to provide readers with a rare glimpse into the local politics surrounding migrant children’s education in China’s political center, including the nature of and motives behind policy implementation at the municipal and district levels and the implications for the survival and development of migrant schools in the city. Educating the Children of Migrant Workers in Beijing is a unique and in-depth contribution to an important area and will appeal to scholars and students across a range of disciplines, including China studies, migration studies, education, social policy, and development studies, as well as to practitioners and policymakers working on migrant issues and social welfare provision in China.

The monograph examines the constructive process of class consciousness among rural migrant children in China and how their perceptions of social reality are shaped by their interactions within family, community, and school contexts. Using evidence from qualitative investigations conducted in two Beijing primary schools, one public school and one private migrant school, the author explores the nexus of social class structure, schooling process, and consciousness construction of rural migrant children, which helps readers to understand rural migrant children’s perceived way out of their social reproduction loop, foresee the future working-class formation in Chinese society, and seek the possibility of fostering a critical consciousness of China’s new workers via education channels. The book will appeal to researchers and students studying migrant children, migrant workers, and education in China. Those who research underprivileged children from the perspective of student agency/student resistance and through a Freirean lens could also be an audience for this book.

In East Asian economies such as China, recent mass rural-urban migration has created a new urban underclass, as have their children. However, their inclusion in urban public schools is a surprisingly slow process, and youth identities in newly industrialized countries remain largely neglected. Faced with monetary and institutional barriers, the majority of migrant youth attend low-quality or underperforming migrant schools, without access to the free compulsory education enjoyed by their urban counterparts. As a result, China’s citizen-building scheme and the sustainability of its labor-intensive economy have greatly impacted global economic restructuring. Using thorough ethnographic research, this volume examines the consequences of urban schooling and citizenship education through which school and social processes contribute to the production of unequal class relations. It explores the nexus of citizenship education and identity-forming practices of poor migrant youth in an attempt to foresee the new class formation in Chinese society. This volume opens up the "black box" of citizenship education in China and examines the effect of school and societal forces on social mobility and life trajectories.

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.