Event

Event page: https://cscc.sas.upenn.edu/events/2015/November/Chinese_Migration

 China’s unprecedented rural-urban migration adds profoundcomplications to the entrenched rural-urban spatial inequality in thecognitive and emotional development of middle schoolers. Despite thenine-year compulsory education law, parents’ rural-urban migration andinstitutional barriers of rural household registration (hukou) havecreated “brought-along” (to cities) and “left-behind” (in villages)student bodies. While governments and schools gradually adjustpolicies and measures to serve these fast growing, sizable,nontraditional student bodies, these students may be growing up withdelayed development. We capitalize on the global curriculum-dependentachievement in math, Chinese, and English, curriculum-independentcognitive test IRT scores, and social emotional assessments of anationally representative sample of 10,279 7th graders in 221classrooms, 112 schools in 2013-14. This paper examines whether andhow school institution’s responsiveness to rural-urban migration playsa decisive role in reshaping the disparities in the cognitive andemotional development of middle schoolers in China.