Studies On Educational Attainment Of Migrant Children From The Perspective Of The Cultural Ecological Theory

With the rapid industrialization and urbanization of China, there are a large number of rural residents floatig to cities. As a result, more and more migrant children live and learn in host cities. Before instituting the policy of "two priorities"in 2001, migrrant children barely study at school in hostinflow cities,espacially at public schools. After the policy of "two priorities" confimed by law, migrant children have rights to receive public education in cities. Migrant workers fighted for fair educational rights of their children in cities for a long period. And now, their educational demands began to extend to the junior middle school and high school.This article attempts to analyze the migrant children’ educational attainment from the perspective of "cultural-ecological theory". This article treats the access to junior middle school as the entry point. There are three indicators to measure migrant children’ educational attainment,namely the location of junior middle school,the type of junior middle school,the intentions to have further education. This article analyzes the influence of household registration system and education policy from amacro perspective and explore migrant families" adaptive mechanisms from a micro perspective. Migrant families use economic resources and cultural resources to improve their children’s educational attainment.This study conducts a semi-structured interviews with twenty one migrant children’s parents in Dinghaiqiao community,Yangpu district in Shanghai. And this study also interviews two faculty members. The findings of the study are as follows:The residence registration system and the related education policies of Shanghai have significant influence on migrant children’ educational attainment through three aspects: the location of junior middle school,the type of junior middle school,the intentions to have further education.Under the disadvantaged position, migrant families attempt to use economic capital and cultural capital to improve their children’s education. Migrant families’ economic capital have direct influence on children’s location of junior middle school and types of junior middle school.The more sufficient financial resources migrant families have,the more likely their children study in Shanghai.The more sufficient financial resources migrant families have,the more likely their children study at schools which have abundant educational resources. Migrant families’ cultural capital have influence on children’s intentions to have further education and location of junior middle school. On the one hand, migrant families use cultural capital to influence children’s intentions to have further education,on the other hand, cultural capital of migrant families show indirect influence on the location of junior middle school through affecting educational expectation.Migrant parents with higher educational degree have higher educational expectation of their children, comparing to migrant parents who have low educational degree.Migrant parents who have higher educational expectation of children, are more likely to let their children to receive high school education. Migrant parents who have higher educational expectation tend to send their children back to hometown when their children study in junior middle school.