“Bitter schooling”: Lessons learned from the educational experiences of a 1997 first-grade rural village cohort

• In Event: Rural Education in a Stratified Chinese Society: An Intersectional Perspective

Proposal

Introduction

China has made remarkable progress in promoting universal education in recent decades. However, rural students continue to encounter significant challenges in accessing quality education (Golley & Kong, 2018; Qian & Smyth, 2008). In 2010, only 38% of rural middle school graduates enrolled in senior high school, whereas that number is 88% among urban students (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2011). About 20% of rural left-behind children drop out before finishing middle school (Duan et al., 2008; Lv, 2014).
Despite the ample literature on rural-urban inequality in education, there is a lack of research that explores the realities of rural education. Why are rural adolescents still dropping out of school when the cultural emphasis on education? Why are rural students still lagging behind, despite the Chinese government’s recent heavy investment in rural education (Ministry of Education, 2013; Peng et al., 2014)? This study attempts to address this research gap and explores the educational experiences of a rural village cohort that started first grade in 1997 at a remote village elementary school in central China and understand how educators and policymakers can learn from this cohort’s educational experiences in improving rural education. To achieve this goal, I utilize the following research question: What can education researchers, educators, and policymakers learn from the educational experiences of the 1997 first grade cohort members from a rural village in central China?

Methods

This study utilizes a case study approach, focusing on a rural village cohort that started first grade at River Village Elementary School (pseudonym) in 1997. Among the 48 members in the cohort, I purposively selected 15 cohort members for semi-structured interviews to explore their educational experiences. Among the 15 interview participants, 60% of them are male and 40% of them are female. 20% of them completed elementary school, 27% finished middle school, 40% graduated with an associates degree and 13% hold a bachelor’s degree. The demographics of the interview participants represented those of the cohort.
Each participant’s interview lasted between one hour to one hour and a half and was audio-recorded and transcribed into Mandarin Chinese. I then uploaded the transcripts into NVivo 12 for several cycles of inductive coding (Miles et al., 2014; Saldana, 2015).

Findings

When recalling their educational experiences (before college), a large majority of the cohort participants used the word ku 苦 (bitter) to describe their school years. The word “bitter” falls into the physical and emotional aspects of their schooling experience and unfolds into three major themes among the cohort members’ educational experiences: Xue Bu Hui 学不会 (Can’t Learn), peer effect, and family background.

Among the participants with a high school or lower educational attainment, their major driving force of dropping out of school was Xue Bu Hui (Cannot Learn), Overwhelmed by feelings of fear and shame due to “cannot learn”, as Yuhai said: “I felt trapped in school, all I wanted to do is drop out and go to dagong (become a migrant worker) with my friends.” When “school feels like a prison” to them, the only option left for them is to drop out.

The third important theme in the educational experiences of the participants is peer effect. Many participants who did not go to college shared that they dropped out of school to follow their friends who had done so earlier and migrated to the city to seek manufacturing jobs. Participant Yuhuai shared that after his two best friends dropped out, “When I was sitting in the classroom feeling trapped in school, I just wished I were with my friends in big cities to dagong, and make lots of money so that I can buy anything I want.”
College graduates also cited peer inspiration as a motivation to pursue higher education, as Haiqiong mentioned that her motivation for college was inspired by her urban cousin who went to college and has a successful career in Beijing and had set an example of a different lifestyle and a possibility for something different from the destiny of her circle of friends: being a migrant worker or generational farmer.

The last significant theme is family background. According to the participants, “parental discipline and supervision,” is considered important to develop good “self-discipline” focus in school. Many of the participants who were left-behind children described that the lack of parental involvement in their schooling had a significant negative impact on their educational performances, as well as their social and emotional wellbeing, since “I did not have anyone [my parents] home to discipline me.”

In contrast, family background played a positive role for the college graduates in their educational experiences and attainment. As Ningshu said: “People on our side of the village … always believe that their children have to go to college. So I never thought of dropping out..” “Our side of the village” refers to the eastern side of the River village, which is a relatively higher socioeconomic area in the village. While half of the cohort members did not graduate from middle school, almost all of the cohort members whose parents have an educational level of high school or above went to college.

Policy Implications

The educational experiences of the cohort members revealed several areas of improvement in rural education that require attention from education policymakers and government officials. First, there needs to be a more supportive system to provide additional assistance to the students who lag academically, instead of only focusing on the better-performing students. Teachers can be incentivized for their efforts to keep the low-performing students from dropping out of school instead of neglecting those students.
Second, the emotions of anxiety, shame, and fear that resulted from poor academic performance were a major dropout factor. This implies the necessity of mental health services in rural schools. Moreover, beyond the mere measure of a student’s ability and future potential based on achievement test scores, screening assessments should be developed to identify any learning disabilities, health challenges, and other issues that are keeping the students from learning effectively.

Author

• Min Wang, Southern Methodist University