Negative Impacts of School Class Segregation on Migrant Children’s Education Expectations and the Associated Mitigating Mechanism

Abstract

This study thoroughly analyzes the impacts of school class segregation on the four dimensions of educational expectations of migrant children, and verifies the moderating effects of migrant children’s identification with the college entrance examination policy on the relationship between the two. A total of 1770 questionnaires were collected for this study. Through multiple regression analysis and moderating effect tests on the data, this study reveals that school class segregation has a significant negative impact on the educational expectations of migrant children; the migrant children’s identification with the college entrance examination policy also partially moderates the impacts of school class segregation on the academic achievement expectations and interpersonal expectations of migrant children. Informed by these results, this study proposes the following three mechanisms that can be used to mitigate the negative impacts of school class segregation on migrant children’s educational expectations: (a) an institutional mechanism involving the “unified urban–rural household registration”; (b) a cultural mechanism involving “promoting learning through examinations”; (c) a compensation mechanism involving the “principle of justice”. This paper provides a Chinese perspective on the issue of school class segregation by offering a policy reference for the improvement of the college entrance examination policy for migrant children and the reform of the household registration system.

Students’ online learning adaptability and their continuous usage intention across different disciplines

“…This study found that compared to STEM disciplines (such as natural science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, and management), the six traditional humanities disciplines, namely philosophy, law, education, literature, history, and economics, showed extremely significant differences in perceived usefulness (PU), which may be due to the difference in teaching style between humanities and STEM (Tuimur et al, 2012) and the peer cultural influence within the humanities. A study of nearly 500,000 online courses in the state of Washington in the United States has similar conclusions that students face greater difficulties in online learning in fields like English and social sciences, possibly due to the existence of "negative peer effects" in the online courses of these disciplines (Lv et al, 2022).…”

Association between Urban Educational Policies and Migrant Children’s Social Integration in China: Mediated by Psychological Capital

“…Based on analysis of the existing literature, academic circles believe that the factors affecting the social integration of migrant children mainly include the macro-social structure, the educational policies, the characteristics of the school where the child is enrolled, the family background of the migrant children, and the personality traits of the migrant children. Firstly, the education systems and supporting policies of inflow cities in China are some of the most important factors affecting the social integration of migrant children [ 16 ]. Secondly, the educational philosophy, the teacher–student relationship, and the socializing among peers of different social classes in the schools of inflow cities have significant effects [ 17 , 18 ].…”

“…When the group boundary is fully or partially open, only those individuals who feel they are capable enough are willing to try to leapfrog to the dominant group. Through a questionnaire survey of 1350 migrant children currently attending the seventh grade in China, Lv et al (2022) show that differences in identification have partial mediating effects between urban educational policies and psychological integration, and cultural integration [ 16 ]. It can be seen from this, that the urban education policies of inflow cities (the independent variables) have a direct impact on the social integration of migrant children (the dependent variable), and are also indirectly influenced by psychological capital (the mediating variable).…”

“…Parsons’ systems theory provides the method for measurement and dimension division of the identification with policies [ 39 ]. Migrant children’s identification with educational policies, a variable, is essentially the cognitive level, the degree of recognition, and the value judgment of migrant children about the relevant educational policies of inflow cities [ 16 , 24 ]. Based on the above literature, starting from three dimensions (policy awareness, policy recognition, and policy evaluation), this study has prepared the scale of Chinese migrant children’s identification with educational policies.…”