Migrant Children in State/Quasi-state Schools in Urban China

Hui Yu is Associate Professor in the School of Education at South China Normal University, China. Dr Yu is an adjunt research fellow at SCNU Centre for Basic Education Governance and Innovation, and at MOE-SCNU Institute for Educational Law. His research interest is sociology of education with a focus on policy processes and social class equalities in the context of rural-to-urban migration in China.

"Internal migration in China, by virtue of its sheer vastness and mythical might, continues to captivate and perplex scholars home and abroad. Yu powerfully positions his book in this enigmatic context and sociologises the schooling and parenting of floating children. The book raises questions of identity and legitimacy, of memorisation and aspiration, of affiliation and classification, of reproduction and transformation, and indeed, of power and participation in societies complicated by puzzling and morphing issues of mobility, diversity, inclusivity, and citizenship. Yu dexterously deciphers the matrix of the entangled spaces of family, school, policy, the market, and the state. His book is a scholastic rarity and a readable piece of exemplary research that sparks ongoing reflections and contestations on urban privilege and ‘migrant paradox’, on the predatory capitalism, on what all these mean for contemporary migrant communities. "Guanglun Michael Mu, Associate Professor, University of South Australia, Australia"Hui Yu’s monograph makes a timely contribution to scholarship on education mobilities and inequalities in contemporary China. His book provides incredibly rich ethnographic data about the ecology and landscape of state urban schools hosting large numbers of migrant children. He provides rigorous theoretical and empirical interventions to help readers gauge the complexities of rural-to-urban migration and the schooling ‘black box’. This book is a must read for scholars and practitioners interested in migration studies, education mobilities, and social theories and social inequalities."Cora Lingling Xu, Assistant Professor, School of Education, Durham University, UK

• 1 Changing landscape of migration and schooling in China 2 Conceptualising quality of education in a migration context 3 Becoming ‘migrant majority’ state school 4 The birth of an ‘interim quasi-state school system’ 5 Being quasi-state schools: navigating through identity dilemma 6 ‘Incompetent’ parents and children’s academic performance 7 Re-structuring habitus and social inclusion in school 8 Pathways to the ‘new urban working-class’ and possibilities of change