Post-compulsory educational opportunities for migrant pupils in urban China: listening to the voices of migrant pupils and those close to them (parents, teaching staff and local pupils) – towards a social justice approach
Creators: name: Liao, Jian
Publisher: name: The University of Edinburgh
Year: 2023
Subjects: rural-urban migrants’ children
urban public education system
China
Chinese household registration (hukou) system
separate educational policy for migrant children
hukou system
post-compulsory education (15+ years old) opportunities
Shanghai
personal and family circumstances
context of school,
policy context
systemic structural barriers

description: In China, for more than two decades, inclusion of rural-urban migrants’ children in the urban public education system has been a key goal of the Chinese government. However, it has not yet become a reality. Due to the structural barriers of the Chinese household registration (hukou) system and the separate educational policy for migrant children, most migrant children without local hukou still have fewer educational opportunities than urban children, especially after compulsory education. The hukou system, established in 1958 to regulate internal migration, divides the Chinese population into rural and urban residents. It has both a geographic and an urban-rural dimension and is a key factor in determining entitlements to public education and other social welfare provisions. This study aims to explore the key factors that shape post-compulsory education (15+ years old) opportunities for migrant pupils enrolled in one Shanghai public middle school in China, across three dimensions: personal and family circumstances, the context of school, and the policy context. Desk research and over three-months’ in-depth field research provide new evidence about the impacts of educational inequalities affecting migrant children. The voices of migrant pupils in urban public middle schools concerning their educational experiences, aspirations and schooling have been largely missing. The research design and analysis adopted in this study draw primarily on a social justice perspective, with the aim of placing the voices of migrant pupils and those close to them (parents, teaching staff and local pupils) at the centre of the inquiry. This research utilised a qualitative single-case study design, involving interviews with 43 migrant pupils, 22 local pupils, 13 parents of migrant pupils, and eight teaching staff in one Shanghai public middle school. Other data collection methods were used to contextualise and triangulate the data, including desk-based documentary analysis, informal conversations, and informal classroom observations. The data were analysed by a thematic analysis approach, drawing on Nancy Fraser's concept of social justice (redistribution, recognition and representation), alongside the key concepts of capital as espoused by Bourdieu, Coleman and Putnam, thus providing an analytical lens through which to discuss the main findings and themes that emerged in relation to key factors shaping migrant pupils' educational opportunities. This study highlights several key findings. First, most migrant pupils in this study developed strong aspirations to pursue higher education in Shanghai as a proactive response to the issues of their unequal migrant status and unfavorable family socioeconomic conditions. At the same time, however, they faced considerable educational dilemmas in accessing academic senior secondary education so as to pursue their university aspirations, due to Shanghai’s separate educational policies for migrant pupils (Shanghai points policy) interacting with the hukou system and the limitations of family cultural and economic capital. Although their parents adopted a range of coping strategies to help them pursue their educational goals by drawing on family capital, including cultural, economic and social capital, the educational prospects of most migrant pupils in this research still present dilemmas as a result of existing systemic structural barriers. Second, this study also highlights the particular role of peer social capital in influencing the educational choices of migrant pupils. The loss of peer networks (through peers’ school transfer) profoundly impacted migrant pupils and local pupils in this study, shrinking all pupils' peer networks and friendships, affecting migrant pupils' sense of belonging and, in turn, influencing educational choices regarding the post-middle school stage. Third, this study has illustrated the power of the academic performance-oriented school culture and the role of teachers in influencing migrant pupils' educational opportunities and sense of belonging. Migrant pupils’ accounts of schooling experiences revealed teachers' negative attitudes and behaviour, resulting in differential treatment. Fourth, most of the migrant pupils in this study developed an ambivalent sense of belonging and identity. They were left without the means to integrate either into Shanghai, where they were born or grew up, or into their unfamiliar rural hometowns, as a result of the city’s educational barriers and social exclusion both within and outside of school. Such ambivalence towards the two places has led to identity confusion for most participants and affected their educational plans for the post-middle school stage. The study concludes that the issues and concerns surrounding migrant pupils’ post-compulsory education in China are closely associated with redistributive, recognitive and representative injustice, which are embedded in systemic structural barriers including the points policy, the national hukou system, the uneven distribution of educational and economic resources between regions and between rural and urban areas, and the academic performance-oriented school culture associated with high-stakes testing systems. These systemic structural barriers shape parents’ social and socioeconomic status which, in turn, profoundly affects their children’s educational opportunities. At the same time, social exclusion, in the form of exclusionary school practices, teacher attitudes, and local social prejudice against migrant workers, also affect migrant pupils' equal learning opportunities and sense of social belonging. This study’s most unique contribution to knowledge lies in what it adds to the literature on social justice for migrant pupils in China by placing the voices of middle school migrant pupils and their parents at the centre of the inquiry for the first time.