This chapter takes up the Chinese "floating children" (or internal migrant children) as both a method and a site to problematize how social science research represents difference, mobility, and change based upon unity, fixity, and stability. I begin with providing a general account of diverse theories and narratives in use by Chinese…

Given the big gap between rural areas and cities and developed areas of China in basic education, it is of great significance to train a large number of excellent teachers for basic education in the vast rural areas so as to boost basic education there and achieve educational equity. Hanshan Normal University is a regional normal university…

This article concludes the two issues on the College Entrance Examination (CEE) in which the contributing authors were invited to take part in a moderated discussion of their opinions on a newly unveiled national policy document titled "Blueprint for Medium and Long-Term National Education Reform and Development (2010-0)" (hereafter, the…

The aim of this paper is to build a capability-based framework, drawing upon the strengths of other approaches, which is applicable to the complexity of the urban-rural divide in education in China. It starts with a brief introduction to the capability approach. This is followed by a discussion of how the rights-based approach and resource-based…

This paper discusses effects of home language usage on minority student educational attainment in western China. Using survey data, the author finds that non-Chinese-speaking minority students are at a disadvantage in the transition to senior secondary schools. However, their transition to junior secondary schools is even more complicated. Rural…

Currently, the rural-urban disparity in access to higher education opportunities is primarily trending toward continuous shrinking; however, this disparity is still very clear and is especially marked in terms of opportunities to attend the top universities. Urbanization and the extension of admission to colleges and universities have played an…

Based on some problems lying in current rural secondary education taking Ling County as an example, this paper proves the necessity and feasibility of moving rural secondary schools to town in the current condition: it is an objective demand by the changes in students; it is a necessary demand to optimize resource allocation and to improve…

The number of farmers in China has been more than 900 million since the mid 1990s. According to the China Villages Statistical Yearbook 2006, by the end of 2005 the number of farmers in China had reached 949.075 million, or 72.6 per cent of China's total population. The "three-dimensional rural issues" concerning agriculture, the…

The balanced development of compulsory education, with a focus on the goal of educational equality, is both a matter of policy orientation and a practical educational issue. At present, people are mostly concerned with the unbalanced state of development of compulsory education, its causes, and issues regarding its administration. Various modes of…

This paper constructs an intertemporal substitution educational model based on endogenous growth theory and examines the rural education, farmer income and rural economic growth problems in China. It shows that the households originally with the same economic endowment but different education endowment take different growth routes, the income…

When William Moore, a Scottish Presbyterian pastor, established the first special school in China in 1874, the country began her long and circuitous journey toward establishing formal educational services for individuals with special needs. Special education in China developed slowly on the infertile soil of continual wars, political instability,…

This document consists of facts and impressions gathered during 1984, in the course of an 18-day visit to the Peoples Republic of China by a team of epidemiologists and gerontologists from the United States. The major portion of the paper presents demographic, economic, and social perspectives on aging in China. It is noted that China remains a…

Rural and urban education systems in China are compared in terms of funding, educational resources, living and learning environments, teacher quality, and students' chances of social mobility. Fundamental inequality exists between urban and rural schools. Differential treatment of two types of schools, "keypoint" and…

This report on the educational systems in China and South Africa compares the policies and processes of the two countries as they attempt to expand and improve rural education. Both countries experienced a major political upheaval, and even though there is a 50-year time lag between these events, political changes ushered in radical educational…

Describes the major characteristics of elementary school education in rural China and the problems that confront rural educators. Discusses student-teacher relationship, classroom management strategies, principal and teacher roles, differences between urban and rural education, economic influences on rural education, and challenges for rural…