Short description:

This book addresses the gap in the provision of basic education to migrant children in China. It examines the case in Beijing, with a focus on policy implementation at the municipal and district levels, and its impacts on migrant schools and their students.

Long description:

Educating the Children of Migrant Workers in Beijing is a timely book that addresses the gap in the provision of basic education to migrant children in China. It examines the case of Beijing, with a focus on policy implementation at the municipal and district levels and its impacts on migrant schools and their students.

Rural migrant workers in the cities usually lack local hukou (household registration) and face serious obstacles in accessing basic social services, including schooling for their children. The educational situation of these children, however, can vary both across and within localities, and, despite policies and regulations from the central government, there have emerged broad and sometimes even extreme differences in the implementation of these policies at the local levels.

This book uses evidence from qualitative interviews and the analysis of policy documents and materials to provide readers with a rare glimpse into the local politics surrounding migrant children?s education in China?s political center, including the nature of and motives behind policy implementation at the municipal and district levels and the implications for the survival and development of migrant schools in the city.

Educating the Children of Migrant Workers in Beijing is a unique and in-depth contribution to an important area and will appeal to scholars and students across a range of disciplines, including China studies, migration studies, education, social policy, and development studies, as well as to practitioners and policymakers working on migrant issues and social welfare provision in China.

"This book provides a detailed analysis of how policy (in this case the education of migrant children) is formulated and then implemented in China. This is its unique contribution ? the in depth study is very exhaustive and rewarding in terms of the insights that emerge." -- Adjunct Associate Professor Robyn Iredale, Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, Australian National University, Canberra

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction  2. Migrant children?s education in China?s cities and the emergence of a new policy area  3. The growth and development of migrant schools in Beijing  4. "Under the same blue sky"? Central and Beijing municipal policies on migrant children's education  5. Decentralization and migrant children?s education in Beijing: the significance of district policy approaches  6. The survival and development of migrant schools in Beijing: impacts of the municipal and district policy approaches  7. The survival and development of migrant schools in Beijing: the role of civil society  8. Implications for the future