Am I Beijinger? : Social identity construction/confusion of rural migrant children in Beijing schools

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday III)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Schooling, identities, and subjectivities

Proposal

Till 2015, the population of migrant children (aged 17 or younger) in China has already reached 34.26 million, accounting for 12.6% of total children 0-17 years (NBSC, UNICEF China & UNEPA China, 2017), which is unaffordable to be neglected. However, these migrant children who are entitled to the equal education right suffered a lot. Besides of the unequal educational access in both compulsory education and post-secondary education, rural migrant children also experienced social marginalization in the school context (Goodburn, 2009); for instance, rural migrant children may be placed in separated classes (Lan, 2014) and overlooked by teachers in class (Xiong, 2010).

The experience of being excluded from public schooling and sense of marginalization confuse rural migrant children, while they attempting at reconstructing their self-identity in urban areas. Researchers found, due to rural migrant children’s formal attachment to rural areas in the hukou system (household registration system), they inherit their parents’ rural origin and recognized as rural residents, even though their memories of rural areas had faded (Geng et al., 2012; Shi, 2010). Yet, living in urban areas for years, or even since born, rural migrant children might develop a sense of belonging to cities (Geng et al., 2012; Xiong, 2009). However, their feeling of being marginalized in cities also weakens their identity with urban citizen but strengthen their identity with the rural migrant group (Geng, Zhou, & Hu, 2012; Kwong, 2011; Shi, 2010; Xiong, 2009).

The extant literature mainly focuses on rural migrant children’s construction of self-identity in a rural-urban dichotomy, and attributed their self-identity dilemma to hukou system and policies for migrant population at local and school levels for generating the marginality. However, there has been little work investigating the possible school influence, particularly on student identity portraying in the schooling.

One’s self-identity, in other words, sense of belonging and perception of who he/she is, is formed throughout one’s life experiences (Erikson 1963; Harris and Sim 2002). Besides of family, school stood out as the significant sphere shaping one’s self-identity (Kwong, 2011). Yet, the school is not merely a platform neutrally for children’s everyday experiences, but rather a place for socialization. As conflict theorists argued, schooling legitimizes the unequal class relationship so that while disadvantaged students are tracked to the dominated social position, they could better accept who they become and where they belong (Anyon, 1981, 2011; M. Apple & King, 1983; M. W. Apple, 1982; Bowles & Gintis, 1976). Moreover, Valenzuela (1999) discovered, there was a de-identification process in the schooling of Mexican origin students, in which students’ Mexican culture is perceived as deficits and harmful to their academic success. In such subtractive schooling, students’ experiential knowledge accumulating through daily lives was devalued as unimportant in the learning process. Reversely, the affirmation of students’ funds of knowledge in school context could cultivate students’ sense of belonging to the classroom, identifying with peers or teachers (Esteban-Gutart & Moll, 2014), and even their sense of social acceptance by the wider society (Karina Chavarria, 2017). Thus, it is critical to situate migrant children’s self-identity dilemma issue into the schooling process, to reveal the dynamics between schooling and migrant children’s experiential knowledge of being non-locals in cities.

The whole fieldwork was conducted between June 2014 and January 2015, in two primary schools in Beijing, one private migrant school (coded as HS) and a public school (coded as CS). Multiple methods of data collection, including artifact collections, observations, interviews, and students questionnaires, were conducted. Research participants include school managers, teachers, fifth and sixth grade rural migrant children, and their parents. This article is mainly based on interview data with 87 rural migrant children (43 from HS and 44 from CS) and 23 teachers (11 from HS and 12 from CS) collected in both case schools.

Student identity is portrayed differently in two case schools. In CS, there was a mainstream culture of educating “hege gongmin” (qualified citizen). The “qualified” here means students should behave disciplined, civilized, and with moral manner as school regulations expected. CS teachers usually perceived their migrant students as ignorant and undisciplined compared with Beijing local students. Therefore, from time to time, teachers reminded students that they were one of CS students, the Beijing public school student, therefore, behaving well inside and outside the school campus were equally important. Failing to meet teachers’ regulations would lead to punishments, like copying the textbook, standing up during lessons, writing apologies, and calling parents.

In the meanwhile, rural migrant families were merely obstacles with negative effects for school’s cultivation of civilized behaviors and improvements in academic achievement in CS. CS teachers believed to have the responsibility of educating these rural migrant children to correct bad habits learned from parents, not to better off but at least catching up with the average level of local Beijing students. As a result, the discourse of “qualified citizen” in CS builds an invisible wall between migrant children and Beijingers, delivering a message that, they were still disqualified to call themselves as a Beijinger, and to become one they need to behave differently from their parents, relatives and the surrounding migrant community members.

By contrast, migrant identity was greatly highlighted in HS. The term dagong zidi (children of migrant workers) often appeared in references to students, highlighting their status as having migrated from places outside of Beijing. Different from CS, migrants’ life experience in Beijing was also included as a main concept in school-based teaching content and classroom discussion. The Social Studies course (shehui ke) in HS sets its objectives of leading students to recognize their migrant identity in Beijing, and to understand their parents’ tough urban life. For instance, HS students’ exclusion from Beijing public schools and parents’ daily lives were two discussant topics for this course. Besides, HS teachers sometimes organized serving activities in surrounding migrant community to develop students’ better understanding of migrant people’s current conditions. Overall, HS pushes its students to reflect on their everyday experiences, which develops a sense of belonging to the migrant group, however strengthens their marginality.

Author

• Chen Jiaxin, National Institutes of Educational Policy Research, East China Normal University