China’s Rural Education: Chinese Migrant Children and Left-Behind Children

This special issue focuses on the education of rural youths who have been influenced by China’s rural-to-urban migration, probably among the largest in human history (UNICEF 2014, 112). In contemporary China, rural-to-urban migration has not only fueled the nation’s economic boom, but also affected the lives of a significant proportion of China’s children. Among the estimated 106 million children¹ impacted by migration in 2010, 35.81 million children migrated with their parents to urban areas, while 70 million were left-behind in predominately rural areas (UNICEF 2014). The rural youths who have been influenced by China’s massive rural-to-urban migration face formidable challenges for socioeconomic mobility. Access to quality education is a critical component of their poor societal prospects (Kwong 2006). Migrant and left-behind children hold lower educational aspirations and are less likely to complete compulsory education (Koo 2012; Koo, Ming, and Tsang 2014; Lu 2012; UNICEF 2014; Jianwen and Jiawei 2010). Given the importance of education as a key transition for youths’ assimilation prospects, the articles here examine the schooling of rural youths who have been influenced by migration policies and processes: rural migrant youths (who move to the city with their rural parents) and left-behind children (whose parents have migrated to the cities, while their children remain in the rural hometown).

To examine the educational trajectory of China’s rural migrant and left-behind youths, our article utilizes a framework that considers both schooling and migration issues. Our framework conceptualizes educational experiences and outcomes as a consequence of dynamic interrelationships between individual, family and societal factors. To account for the vulnerability and resources affecting schooling for migrant and left-behind children, our framework encompasses the following dimensions: background factors (step 1), school as context of reception (step 2), educational outcomes (step 3). Specifically, “background factors” include: individual characteristics (e.g. gender, human capital), family factors (e.g. socio-economic status, family structure, resources), and societal context of reception. “School as context of reception” encompasses: access to school type, as well as academic experiences (e.g. academic to learning opportunities, extra curricular activities) and social experiences (e.g. student-peer relationships, student-teacher relationships) (contingent on school enrollment). “Educational outcomes” include: socio-cultural outcomes (e.g. identity) and academic outcomes (e.g. achievement, aspirations, attainment).

Importantly, background factors draw from the segmented assimilation model, which originates from the United States and explains diverse societal outcomes for second-generation immigrant youths (Portes and Rumbaut 2006). In particular, the importance of migration is embodied within the “context of reception” concept, which acknowledges that the societal context that receives immigrants plays a decisive role in their process of adaptation, regardless of the human capital that an individual immigrant may possess; it encompasses 1) government policies, 2) opportunity structure (e.g. labor market), 3) reception by receiving migrant/ethnic community, 4) societal reception by non-migrant/non-ethnic people in host society (Portes & Rumbaut 2006; Marrow 2011). Similar to the segmented assimilation model, we explain outcomes as a function of immigrant, family and context of reception characteristics.

However, our framework makes two important modifications. First, step 2 of our framework focuses on schools and schooling—namely, how individual, family and government policies shape educational access to types of schools, and (upon enrollment) educational experiences and outcomes for Chinese youth. By integrating educational stratification concepts into our framework to examine factors that shape educational access, experiences and outcomes (step 3), we focus on a societal outcome that critically conditions immigrant youth’s future assimilation prospects (Buchmann and Hannum 2001).

Second, we extend understanding of the ways in which contexts of reception influence youth in sending communities. While left-behind children do not migrate, their lives are shaped by migration policies in the receiving contexts. For example, urban policies that restrict post-compulsory educational opportunity for migrant youth contribute towards migrant parents’ decision to migrate for work, but not bring their children to the city (Carney 2016). Left-behind children thus emerge because of restrictive urban policies towards migrants. Additionally, the consequent parent-child separation has substantial adverse effects on these youth’s development (Ling and Zhang 2015, Murphy et al. 2015) and education (Wen & Lin 2012; Zhou, Murphy, Tao 2014).

ARTICLE SUMMARY

Each of the six articles highlights a different dimension of Figure 1. Collectively, these articles reveal distinct, yet complementary insights on how individual, family, and social contexts and their interactions shape the educational trajectories of left-behind and rural migrant youths.

FIGURE 1 Educational trajectory of China’s migrant and left-behind youths as a function of individual, family, and societal factors.

Han Jialing et al.’s 2014 article “Urban-Rural Extension: Urban-rural reproduction among different groups of children” analyzes data from the 2010 Third Survey on Chinese Women’s Social Status, a nationally representative sample that enables them to compare the vulnerabilities—operationalized as individual, family and social contextual resources (Figure 1, background characteristics)—of rural migrant and left-behind youths relative to their urban and rural (nonmigrant) counterparts. Its comparative lens provides a contour of China’s social resource landscape across its diverse geographic and economic divides. Three key findings emerge. First, among all four populations, urban youths are the most privileged in terms of educational, health, and family support. Second, due to the rural-urban gap in educational resources, urban and rural migrant youths in the cities have access to more educational resources relative to their left-behind and rural (non-migrant) peers. Third, urban and rural (nonmigrant) children have access to more family support compared with migrant and left-behind children because of the fractured family structure in response to the migration labor.

Drawing on interviews and case studies from action research and field investigation in Sichuan, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Anhui, Hunan, and Henan provinces, Lu Pan and Jingzhong Ye investigate the background factors facing left-behind children. Their study provides a macro-level perspective on the countryside’s deterioration, the broader social context in which left-behind children live. A critical component of the rural downward transformation is the decline of traditional rural community, a phenomenon that is critically linked to rural migration into the city, leaving the young and old in rural regions. At the family level, left-behind children experience long-term negative impact due to their physical separation from their parents, who labor in the cities. Additionally, the decline of rural educational quality further disadvantages left-behind youths. Due to the social and family context facing left behind youths, older youths who are left behind face a challenging transition into adult, female left-behind children are vulnerable to sexual abuse, and left-behind children from low socioeconomic backgrounds face additional poverty-related challenges (e.g., malnutrition).

The article by Sui Haimei and Song Yingquan investigates the effect of the left-behind experience on academic outcomes, specifically educational attainment, dropout behavior, and aspirations for further education (e.g., enrollment in vocational and technical college). Analyzing 2011–2012 data from 7,411 first-year students in 106 upper-secondary vocational schools across Zhejiang and Shaanxi, the study found no significant differences for all three outcomes among three student groups: left-behind children, rural migrant children and rural (nonmigrant) children. When controlling for individual, family and school characteristics, there were no significant differences between left-behind and non–left-behind children in terms of educational attainment, dropout behavior, and the desire for further schooling (vocational and technical colleges). The findings conflict with the authors’ hypothesis and other studies (Wen and Lin 2012) concluding that left-behind children are among the most vulnerable youths in China.

The remaining three articles reveal the persistent education-related barriers that rural migrant youths continue to face in the city. In particular, the articles consider background characteristics that shape migrant children’s school access and educational experiences in the cities.

Luo Yun, Zhong Jingxun, and Zeng Rongguang utilize fieldwork interviews and observations to examine educational access and public school experiences for rural migrant youths in a first-tier city and eastern coastal city. Among the surveyed rural migrant children, the more disadvantaged (e.g., parents with lower educational attainment, lower socioeconomic status) tended to attend low-quality migrant schools, rather than public schools. Those who attended public schools were concentrated in lower-quality public schools and thus did not have access to the city’s quality educational resources. Importantly, public schools that enroll migrant children soon became majority-migrant schools, as local parents were likely to send their child to another school²; such a phenomenon reflects the negative context of reception that migrants face in the city. Public school teachers would also discriminate against rural migrant youths, further reinforcing the urban bias against rural residents.

Liu Qian’s research illuminates the social reproduction of rural migrant’s status through between-school sorting in the city. The study was based on ethnographic field work in three Beijing schools—a public school, a licensed migrant school (government approved), and unlicensed migrant schools (government non-approved) – during fall 2011, as well as survey data from fifth- and sixth-grade students and their parents in 14 primary schools in a Beijing school district during summer 2013. Findings from the survey reinforce the between-school sorting patterns from the article by Luo et al. Specifically, rural migrant children from families with weaker cultural and social capital were more likely to attend lower quality schools: licensed and unlicensed migrant schools. Importantly, migrant children in the three school types encounter distinct school experiences and challenges for societal integration. Those in public schools face a broader social context that stigmatizes rural origins and culture. Rural migrant youths in licensed migrant schools encounter the cultural conflict between urban and rural culture. Last, those in unlicensed migrant schools experience alienation, as their schools are not included within the official educational system.

As early as 2009, Xiong Yihan wrote “Urbanized Children: Urban-rural awareness and identity consciousness of migrant workers’ children” to understand how rural migrant youths perceive themselves. Based on journal entries from rural migrant youths who attend a migrant school in Tongxiang (Zhejiang) and interviews with rural migrant youths who attend a choir in Shanghai, Xiong concludes that early childhood experiences and length of time living in the city differentiate rural migrant children into two groups: 1.5 generation and second-generation rural migrant youths. Those of the 1.5 generation moved to the city at a later age with their parents, thus remembering their early childhood in the countryside. In contrast, many of Shanghai’s migrant children were born and raised in the city, with no rural exposure. Focusing on second-generation youths, Xiong concludes that migrant youths’ identities are more akin to a type of status. Reflecting the negative social context in which migrants are received, migrant youths in Tongxiang described urban residents discriminating against migrants, while Shanghai migrant youths shared of segregated classes in their school. The consequent reactive “identity,” which emerges in response to urban marginality, reinforces the work of other scholars (Ming 2014). While Xiong does not explicitly mention schools as sites that contribute to the reactive “identity” formation, the alienation and discrimination that rural migrant’s experience in schools (as investigated by Yun et al. and Liu) plausibly plays a significant role in this sociocultural outcome.

DISCUSSION

As editors of this special issue we hope these articles will promote dialogue between Western and Eastern scholars on the educational challenges and opportunities that migration poses. The internal migration context of China provides an opportunity for scholars to refine theories of immigrant youths and education.

For Eastern scholars, we desire to enrich China’s understanding of rural youths’ education by focusing on larger processes and concepts for building theory. To date, the Chinese research on rural migrant education focuses on typologies of student and school types. By including Liu Qian’s and Han Jialing et al.’s articles, we seek to show typologies are a critical foundation to develop theory that explains student outcomes; such theoretical understanding is crucial for China to develop effective solutions for the unprecedented challenge of incorporating left-behind and migrant youths in their societies. The modified framework (Figure 1) thus provides a theoretical framework with potential to enrich educational understanding of rural children, particularly migrant and left-behind children. As indicated by the figure, educational access, experiences and outcomes are shaped by a wide range of background factors on multiple levels; specifically, dynamic interrelationships among individual, family, and societal contexts of reception reproduce rural disadvantage in contemporary China. The articles in this issue aim to provide insight how individual, family, and social contexts and as their interactions shape the educational access, experiences, and outcomes of left-behind and rural migrant youths. It is our hope that the new framework generated from these articles will serve as an intellectual platform for building theory, designing innovative studies and informed practice in China.

For rural migrant children, the “context of reception” concept from immigration literature (Portes and Rumbaut 2006; Rumbaut and Portes 2001) is useful in the China context, particularly for illuminating rural migrant youths’ educational access and experiences in the city. Rural migrant youths face a negative social context (e.g., urban bias against rural culture) in the city; such a societal context of reception plays a significant role in reproducing rural disadvantage and even seems to overshadow the effects of individual and family contexts. Despite reforms at the national and local level, migrant youths thus continue to face limited access to quality compulsory schooling in China’s cities. Findings from the articles by Yun et al. and Liu reveal rural disadvantage manifesting through between-school sorting processes. Whether in the form of alienation experienced by rural migrant youths attending unlicensed migrant schools or the flight of local youths upon initial enrollment of rural migrant student into a public school, schooling contributes to rural migrant’s experiences of marginality (Kwong 2011). The discrimination that rural migrant’s experience through schooling plausibly plays a significant role in the emergence of second-generation migrant youths reactive “identity” formation (see Xiong’s article).

While rural migrant youths face formidable urban educational challenges, left-behind youths in China’s rural regions are even more vulnerable. By analyzing a nationally representative sample, Han Jialing et al.’s comparative framework reveals the educational advantage in that rural migrant youths possess in comparison with left-behind youths. Although rural migrant youths typically access low quality educational resources in the urban context, these urban resources are higher quality compared with the educational resources provided to youths in the countryside. Such a finding reinforces other studies that identify left-behind youths to be among the most vulnerable in China (Wen and Lin 2012). In contrast, Sui and Song concluded that the left-behind experience did not have a significant impact on educational outcomes in their study. In explaining these unexpected findings, we note the study’s sample of vocational students, rather than academic schools. Because students with lower educational expectations and achievement are more likely to attend vocational schools (Hansen and Woronov 2013), it is plausible that the findings reflect a vocational school effect. We thus recommend further research in academic schools.

Providing a macro-level perspective on the social context that conditions the vulnerability of left-behind youths, in this issue Pan and Ye’s article details the ways in which rural-to-urban migration and urban bias negatively penetrate the lives of left-behind children at the community, school and family level. The social resources previously embodied within close-knit family and neighbors are disappearing in an increasingly urban China. Rural villages are now occupied by the very young and very old, as the young move to the city for employment. Additionally, state policies promote urbanization as a signal of modernity by destroying villages and relocating rural residents to cities (Johnson 2013). The consequent deterioration of rural community, school, and family structures critically disadvantage left-behind youths with respect to their educational trajectory and, more broadly, development.

In summary, the articles in this special issue reflect the predominant research focus on background factors (e.g., family, societal context) conditioning access to school type, as well as school effects on achievement and attainment. As reflected in Figure 1, other gaps in knowledge remain to be addressed. We suggest longitudinal studies and multi-sited research across China’s diverse contexts can make great progress in overcoming these knowledge gaps. Specifically, longitudinal studies illuminate the extent to which and ways in which background factors shape educational trajectories for these vulnerable populations. Moreover, cross-sectional research situated in multiple locales can provide insight on the importance of context—particularly context of reception (social context)—in interacting with individual and family factors to shape educational experiences and outcomes.

For Western education scholars, our conceptual framework aims to contribute toward the growing global recognition that schools play a critical role in shaping assimilation prospects for first- and second-generation immigrant students (Hao and Pong 2008). This work contributes to the emergent, but important research body that examines schools as critical “contexts” of reception for immigrant youths (Dabach 2011). Current work on immigrant youths’ schooling predominately focuses on students’ educational outcomes (Haller, Portes, and Lynch 2011; Pong and Hao 2007; Ryabov and Van Hook 2007). Our conceptual framework (Figure 1) thus broadens the analytic lens beyond educational achievement and attainment to also explain factors that shape educational access and experiences.

To advance understanding of schools as contexts of reception, we identify three key domains of inquiry: educational access to school type, within-school experiences, and educational outcomes. For each of the aforementioned educational domains, we recommend applying Alba’s (2005) focus on “boundary-related processes” (42). In doing so, we respond to claim to reconceptualize segmented assimilation’s model in terms of boundaries to free it from “dependence on U.S. structural features and generalized to apply to second-generation exclusion in more than one society” Alba (2005, 42). Consequently, in each of these domains, it is critical to consider mechanisms by which symbolic and social boundaries³ are maintained by and through the educational institutions. For example, as illustrated by the flight of local students from China’s public schools, symbolic boundaries matter. In response to cultural stereotypes of rural migrants as “low quality (suzhi)” (Murphy 2004), local parents withdraw their children from public schools upon rural migrant student enrollment (Li and Placier 2015). The maintenance of symbolic and social boundaries is thus integrally linked to the production of educational inequality. In particular, social boundary formation creates unequal access to educational opportunity between rural migrants and urban groups.

Importantly, we believe examining boundary-related processes in education provides analytic benefit for cross-comparison of second-generation youths’ educational opportunity.⁴ For example, the articles by Yun et al. and Liu highlight the divergent social and academic experiences of rural migrant youths in unlicensed migrant and public schools. Building on these findings, boundary-focused research in different school types can disentangle how proximity to students of other backgrounds and school structure condition unequal school distribution of material and symbolic resources. Ultimately, this type of research can show how schools act to strengthen or weaken the boundaries (academic and social) among students (Lan 2014); such boundary-focused research on education has potential to engage with the rich boundary work in other national contexts (Carter 2012; Warikoo 2010). The consequent dialogue on how contexts (e.g., institutional, policy) shape boundaries that increase or decrease educational opportunity holds promise for comparing the schooling of second-generation immigrant youths.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Yiu

Lisa Yiu is an assistant professor at University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Education. Her equity-focused work in Asia examines issues of diversity and inclusion, as well as the impact of educational policy and educational reform on schooling—particularly the role of teachers. Using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, her work is motivated and critically enriched by her experiences as an inner-city teacher in Los Angeles Unified School District, English-as-a-second-language teacher in China, and university supervisor in the Stanford Teacher Education Program. Her research has appeared in the China Quarterly and Harvard Educational Review.

Luo Yun

Luo Yun is an associate professor at Renmin University of China, School of Education. Her research field is in the sociology of education. Her current research interests are migrant children’s education, rural education, as well as qualitative methods practices. She has published in British Journal of Educational Studies, Peking University Education Review (Chinese), Comparative Education Review (Chinese), and Exploring Education Development (Chinese).

Notes

This estimate constitutes 38% of China’s total child population.

Similar to “White flight” in America (Coleman et al. 1975), Chinese local parents would sometimes withdraw their child from a public school once rural migrant children were enrolled.

In understanding the establishment and maintenance of boundaries (academic and social), it is important to note the critical role of symbolic boundaries. Defined as the “conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, and even time and space” (Lamont and Molnar 2002, 168), symbolic boundaries are a school arena of contestation as groups compete to privilege their particular sociocultural logic as “normal.” Such symbolic boundaries are integrally linked to access of a school’s material domain (e.g., school resources, participation in extracurricular activities). Social boundaries encompass social differences manifested in unequal access to and unequal distribution of resources (material and nonmaterial) and social opportunities.

In the Chinese case, the reproduction of rural-urban boundaries in education constitutes an exclusionary process that facilitates rural migrant youth’s downward educational trajectory. For rural migrants who are Han Chinese, their rural origins constitute an “internal other” (Jakimów 2012). Rural culture and origins are stigmatized as signs of backwardness in a contemporary Chinese culture that positions urban culture as modern (Murphy 2004).