Citizenship Education and Migrant Youth in China ─ Pathways to the Urban Underclass

In East Asian economies such as China, recent mass rural-urban migration has created a new urban underclass, as have their children. However, their inclusion in urban public schools is a surprisingly slow process, and youth identities in newly industrialized countries remain largely neglected. Faced with monetary and institutional barriers, the majority of migrant youth attend low-quality or underperforming migrant schools, without access to the free compulsory education enjoyed by their urban counterparts. As a result, China’s citizen-building scheme and the sustainability of its labor-intensive economy have greatly impacted global economic restructuring.

Using thorough ethnographic research, this volume examines the consequences of urban schooling and citizenship education through which school and social processes contribute to the production of unequal class relations. It explores the nexus of citizenship education and identity-forming practices of poor migrant youth in an attempt to foresee the new class formation in Chinese society. This volume opens up the "black box" of citizenship education in China and examines the effect of school and societal forces on social mobility and life trajectories.

Miao Li is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include global economic realignment and youth identity in local context.