Migrant status, school segregation, and students’ academic achievement in urban China

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the role of school segregation in creating disparities in academic achievement between migrant children and their local counterparts in different urban contexts in China. Based on analyses of data from the China Educational Panel Survey (CEPS) in the 2013–2014 academic year, I show that, although migrant children performed significantly worse than local children in municipal cities directly under central government’s jurisdiction, their academic achievements were similar to those of their urban peers in non-municipal cities. The mechanisms by which school segregation influences migrant children’s education differ. In municipal cities, migrant children’s education is worse than that of non-migrant children, regardless of school quality. In non-municipal cities, however, migrant children are better off in the lowest quality schools but still worse off in medium and higher quality schools. Therefore, migrant children are disadvantaged in education, but the form and extent of the disadvantage vary according to specific urban localities, which have different policies of social exclusion and discrimination based on hukou status.