Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE) - Volume 21 - Issue 1 - Under the Equity Discourse: Divergent School Practices for Rural Migrant Children in Chinese Urban Schools

Oct 15, 2026

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This paper investigates how Chinese urban public schools respond to the large-scale presence of rural migrant children under the emerging policy discourse of educational equity. Using longitudinal field research in two Beijing public schools, the study identifies two contrasting practices: tailored differentiation versus mainstreaming through the same curriculum and pedagogy. Despite both schools’ claims to serve migrant children’s best interests, neither practice fully meets students’ real educational needs. The paper advocates student-oriented, inclusive education as an alternative equity concept.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Equity in Theory and School Practice

Under the Equity Discourse

Divergent School Practices in Chinese Urban Schools

Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE) Volume 21, Issue 1, 2019 Under the Equity Discourse: Divergent School Practices for Rural Migrant Children in Chinese Urban Schools Donghui Zhang School of Education, Renmin University of China Yun Luo School of Education, Renmin University of China This paper examines how Chinese urban schools respond to the unprecedentedly large number of rural migrant children under the emerging discourse of educational equity. Drawing upon longitudinal field research in two Beijing public schools, this study finds two contrasting school practices with regards to the migrant children, one emphasizing tailored education (“differentiation”) and the other acting school-wide upon the same curriculum and pedagogy (“mainstreaming”). While the two schools both claim to serve the best interest of their migrant intakes and promote educational equity, they have not been able to meet the migrant students’ true educational needs. Student-oriented, inclusive education is advocated as an alternative concept of equity for Chinese schools at the end of the paper. Introduction With China’s rapid modernization and urbanization in the past three decades, a group of “rural migrant children” have emerged in Chinese cities. These rural migrant children largely come from villages to join their parents who work as manual labor in big cities along China’s east coast. According to the latest census data, the total estimated number of Chinese migrant children (aged 0-17) had reached 35.81 million, 80% of which (28.77 million) were of rural origin (All-China Women’s Federation Report, 2013). For a long time, these migrant children were not entitled to public social welfare programs in the host cities due to their official household registration (Hukou in Chinese) as rural, out-of-statei residents. Disadvantaged in socioeconomic status and academic performance, the majority of them were excluded from the urban school system and could only resort to low-quality makeshift schools (dagong zidi xuexiao) established by migrant workers or parents in city outskirts (Han, 2004) . The growing visibility of rural migrant children and their lack of equal educational opportunities prompted the Chinese government to issue an important policy in 2001, popularly known as the “Two Mainlies”(liangweizhu) policy, which stipulated that education of migrant children are the main responsibilities of host cities and of public schools. Under this policy, migrant children who satisfy eligibility conditions ii are legally ensured to access urban schools up to Grade 9 and enjoy “equal treatment” as the local children (Ministry of Education, 2010). The “Two Mainlies” policy reflects the determination of the Chinese central government in promoting educational equity and advancing social justice. In spite of the increasing complexity and stringency of the school enrollment paperwork required by individual cities (such as Beijing, Shanghai, etc.) and schools (such as elite schools) in recent years, migrant students have constituted about 30% of the total student population in urban public schools (Grades 1-9) nationally (Ministry © 2019, Current Issues in Comparative Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Current Issues in Comparative Education 21(1), 3-19. Under the Equity Discourse of Education, 2017). Moreover, as more and more urban middle-class students manage to get into “good” public schools, weak schools with less favorable reputation in Chinese cities tend to have a predominant proportion of migrant students, some as high as 80%(Luo， Zhong & Tsang, 2015) . With such an unprecedentedly large number of students from rural family backgrounds, those urban schools sitting at the lower end of the school hierarchy face an unfamiliar student body. How do these urban schools respond? In what ways do they perceive the migrant children as different from local children? To what extent do they d

FAQs

Why does the paper argue that these practices still fail to meet migrant students’ needs?

Although both schools claim to promote educational equity and serve migrant children’s best interests, they have not been able to meet the migrant students’ true educational needs.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by nayy☆