Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Chung Wei-Yun, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

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 and partly due to insufficient attention to theorizing the ecology of child development which accounts for interplays of multi-layered social and institutional factors. 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 ‘flexible householding’ experiences 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 cultural model of social-mobility-driven educational pursuit and the structural inequalities that impede migrant children’s academic achievement in urban China, and discuss its social and policy implications.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Gu Xiaorong is currently a Research Fellow at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She is a sociologist who shows great passions in 1) understanding how broader social and economic systems shape the development and well-being of young populations, and 2) in exploring the social consequences of China’s economic reform for its social stratification patterns and for everyday life of ordinary people. Her wider research interests include child and youth development, migration, family, education, social stratification, China’s political economy and mixed-methods research.

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