Access and equity for rural migrants in Shanghai

Abstract

Shanghai has emerged as a key Chinese municipality in promoting educational equity for rural migrant children, a population of disadvantaged youth that policymakers worry will develop into a future urban underclass. In 2010, Shanghai became the first Chinese city to provide free compulsory education to children of migrant workers by investing $500 million (USD) to expand public school enrollment (Hewitt et al, 2010). As Shanghai reforms aim to increase migrant access to quality schooling, what are the persistent challenges to equity? From the perspective of middle school migrant youth in Shanghai, I investigate school and migrant household strategies in the wake of reforms. Drawing on interviews with rural migrant students who attend two Shanghai public schools, I examine the “family capital” required for accessing a quality education. I conceptualize “family capital” as the resources (e.g. human, social, cultural and economic) that rural parents, siblings and extended family activate in response to school-imposed barriers. Activation of social “family capital” resources—particularly personal connections (guanxi) with local Shanghainese and information-gathering -- were critical for migrant parents to enroll their children into public schools and, once admitted to a public school, to gain entry into high-track homerooms. Children also actively participated in their households, as older siblings provided tutoring assistance and advice on the school admission test to younger siblings. The need for “family capital” to access quality schooling suggests rural migrant children still face formidable obstacles to realize increased educational opportunity.