The Social Context of Schooling for Migrant Children in China

• In Event: 75.042 - MTCC Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: 75.042-2 - Research for Social Justice: Multimodal Narratives of Struggles of Ethnic-Minority, Immigrant, Migrant, and Refugee Students in China, Indonesia, and the United States

Abstract

This study analyzes the contexts surrounding the emergence of migrant children schools in China and many challenges faced by these schools and the children attending them. It pays close attention to collective efforts of parents and teachers working in migrant communities for the education of migrant children. Previous studies have addressed the power of ordinary people coming together to create change in their communities to reverse serious educational problems (Anyon, 2005; Apple, 2006; Ball, 2006; Binder, 2002; Sandler, 2009) and historical accounts of describing the challenges and rewards of community organizing (Payne & Strickland, 2008; Reese, 2002; Siddle-Walker, 1996). This study builds on the work in examining the dynamics of schooling for migrant children in China. The reflective analyses of social relations and detailed accounts of structures of inequality provide spaces for a politics of recognition and redistribution that has been denied to migrant workers and their families for over three decades. These struggles are particularly true for those who have built special schools for migrant children in complex and uncertain social and political environments.

The researcher focuses on the mobilization of resources in the development of this collective action. In addition to extensive archival research on population migration and state responses to changing educational needs over the past thirty years, the study was conducted in five different migrant communities in and around Beijing. As part of this research, ethnographic methods were used to complete a fourteen-month, multi-sited study, including in-depth interviews and participant observations at homes, schools, and community sites with migrant children, their parents and teachers. By documenting the history of migrant children schools and sharing the stories of migrant families, this study recognizes the collective efforts of parents and teachers in the migrant communities and works towards ensuring that the children of migrant workers receive quality education.

As one of only a few studies focusing on schools for the children of migrant workers, this research provides a timely and important contribution to a growing body of research aimed at understanding the challenges and suffering migrant workers and their children experienced as a result of social and economic inequality. One of the most distinct elements of this study is that it captures in rich detail an important and ongoing struggle takes place in contemporary Chinese society in ways that are relevant to all seeking a more complete understanding of mobilizations against entrenched forms of institutionalized inequity. Given the increasing globalizing flows of people, capital, language, and ideas, it is critically important to learn from the experiences of migrant communities like those in China. The lessons learned from these struggles in China help to provide broader understandings of complex and vibrant realities in which global communities are situated.

Author

• Min Yu, Wayne State University