Citizenship Education in China: Urban Schooling and Identities of Migrant Youth

• In Event: Civic Identity

Abstract

Based on ethnographic data drawing on participant observations and in-depth interviews with migrant youth, their teachers, and parents, this paper examines the students’ subjective understandings of the value of education, academic and career aspirations, the urban-rural dichotomy and their own social locations. In doing so, it looks into the school and social processes through which active agents define the meanings of the educated person in the Chinese context. It goes on to explicate how these meanings are shaping the citizen-building goals of the schools and the everyday experiences of the students. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of China’s citizen-building scheme and the sustainability of the labor-intensive economy, as well as their potential impacts on the global economy.

Author

• Miao Li, University at Buffalo - SUNY