There is a growing literature studying the 'non-traditional' type of international schools. However, a less explored and under-theorised area is the changing dynamics of the global-local interactions in the way these international schools are being redefined and shaped by local processes, regimes of control, and mechanisms. Drawing on empirical…

The problems China's rural-born migrants face in accessing urban public services, including education, are widely known. This article analyses how official discourse attributes migrant children's vulnerability to their 'problematic family background' while exhorting them to show 'gratitude' to a benevolent state. Combining documentary analysis and…

In China, the government had created a policy-friendly educational setting for rural migrant children for a long period after 2001. Yet in 2013, in some metropolitan areas such as Beijing and Shanghai, the schooling policy retuned to more demanding criteria, bringing hardships to many migrant families. This paper examines the power relations…

Preparing today's children and youth to become active, responsive adults in transforming global societies requires that schools change dramatically. To work towards this goal is daunting in light of educational policies and school structures that hinder teamwork and creativity. Despite challenges due to education policies, traditional school…

This paper reports findings from a comparative study of urban vs. rural school principals in China. It is an extension and replication of an earlier study on the profiles and preparation of school leaders in the US and China. The study illustrates modern portraits--demographic characteristics of urban and rural principals in China, explores their…

The large-scale internal migration from countryside to city over the past 30 years has transformed China's demographic, social, economic, and educational landscapes. There were approximately 35.81 million children below age 18 living with their migrant parents in urban cities without local registration of permanent residence ("Hukou").…

In 1998, the People's Republic of China implemented an education policy, the "School Consolidation Policy", which entailed merging small rural schools with larger ones. It has had a massive effect on rural people across China, and as a result of it, over 60% of schools in outlying areas have closed. The policy's implementation and…

This article will reflect on the risks of a careless application of "safe-talk", a fruitful analytical concept that has been widely used in classroom discourse studies to link chorus-like repetition sequences with certain institutional and social processes related to either post-colonialism or migration. The discussion will draw on a…

With the advancements of nine years of universal compulsory education, the development of China's basic education has resulted in new demands aimed at improving the overall quality of basic education in rural areas. Closings and consolidation are important measures in this regard. In the process of merging and consolidation, the construction of a…

The Chinese government is pouring resources into building vocational education at all levels of the Chinese educational system. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in three vocational secondary schools in 2007-2012, this article compares rural and urban schools to highlight the persistent urban-rural divide in implementing vocational…

The paper has compared the quality of compulsory education of rural schools in West China with the counties, cities, and provincial capitals, and find out that there is a big gap between the quality of West rural and urban compulsory education, the quality of some grades of the rural primary schools has not achieved the basic requirement of the…

Using one cohort of 7235 middle school students in Beijing, China, we examined the evolution of the gender achievement gap in middle school. Our study found a more significant female dominance than in U.S. studies: even though boys gradually caught up during middle school, especially in Math and Science, and the gender achievement gap decreased…

Conventional data collection and analyses to evaluate opportunity to learn (OTL) is time and energy intensive. We propose an extension of an alternative approach suggested by Winfield (1993) by using a method to detect differential item functioning (DIF) to select items. These items are then used as initial indicators of possible difference in OTL…

China has made remarkable progress along the path of economic transformation over the past three decades. To continue its rapid growth in an economy with increasingly higher wages, China's key challenge is whether it can become competitive enough in quasi-skilled and skilled sectors so that more technologically advanced industries and service…

By applying the multivariable method to elementary school data in one western province, this study shows that per-student budgetary nonpersonnel expenditure in the province is the most unequal index in terms of horizontal equity. In terms of vertical equity, the equity effect of the "poor county" designation by the central or provincial…