China's PISA Success: A Comparison of Migrant and Local Students' Mathematics Performance in PISA 2018

• In Event: STEM Academic Achievement Gaps

Abstract

China’s leading performance in PISA 2018 caused a controversy on its sample credibility, due to the speculated exclusion of migrant students without local hukou. The present study attempts to directly address the concern by deriving student hukou status based on China’s hukou policies. Assuming the estimation of hukou held true, we adopted theories of segmented assimilation and social capital and examined the effects of hukou, family socioeconomic status, parents’ emotional support and student demographic characteristics on mathematics achievements using a fixed-effect multilevel model. Our results indicate that hukou does not have significant effects on students’ achievements, but family socioeconomic status and parents’ emotional support played significant roles. Parents’ emotional support was significantly lower for non-hukou households than the hukou households.

Authors

• Xueyuan Qin, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Yue Ma, Shanghai Jiao Tong University