Hopes and Hurdles: Rural Migrant Children’s Education in Urban China

Abstract

Abstract Rural migrant children are a rapidly growing demographic in Chinese cities. Existing sociological literature yields inconsistent findings regarding their wellbeing and adaptation to the urban society, partly due to a bifurcation of methodological approaches. Combining multilevel modelling and field research, this mixed-method study documents the coexistence of high hopes and arduous hurdles migrant children encounter in a nested system of inequality, which impacts their educational performance in complicated ways. We report the following findings. At the family level, in-depth interviews record parents’ unbounded aspirations for children’s educational success as a family social mobility project. However, cumulative socioeconomic disadvantage, the spill-over of migrant parents’ job precarity and stress, and strained intergenerational ties due to prior family separation constitute major barriers that suppress migrant children’s performance. At the school level, a de facto segregation system negatively impact migrant children’s performance by disproportionately channelling them to schools less favourable in ranking, resources and academic climate, and subject to social discrimination. We highlight the tension between the co-existing “hopes and hurdles” in migrant children’s urban educational experience and discuss the social and policy implications.