| Mobility(liudong)is the main feature of the current society.This study pays attention to explore the educational choices,motivation and impaction of rural study families(peidujiating)who get mobility actively to urban areas within the province in order to get high-quality educational resources.Using qualitative research methods,this study conducted a two-month fieldwork at 8 different study families in Weinan,Shaanxi province,and interviewed 22 study parents as well as teachers.Drawing on the different conceptual frameworks,such as the theory of space production,habitus,intergenerational contracts,and cruel optimism,this study analyzed educational strategies,practices,and the impact of study families.The findings can be shown as follows:First,peidu strategies of study families are flexible and diverse.Flexible family is the main feature of different strategies which includes ‘parents take a balance between work and peidu’;‘parents go to work and grandparents are responsible for peidu ’ as well as ‘fathers earn money in a certain place while mothers take care of the child in a different place’.The way study families choose strategies is not stable but is constantly adjusted according to family conditions,which shows the subjectivity of peidu families faced with modernity and social transformation.Second,the parenting study of peidu families presents the characteristic of‘continuity in rupture’.Parents prefer to reflect on their parenting ideas when they are exposed to different parenting resources and concepts in the process of peidu,thus,they would like to take the ideal parenting scripts which leads to a rupture with the last generation’s parenting ideas.However,due to the limitations of parents’ own cultural capital and the persistence of class habitus,their parenting practices shows continuity with the last generation.Third,the degree of consistency between the habitus of rural paid families and institutional habitus will affect home-school interaction and practice.The interaction between the peidu family and the school shows the feature of ‘collaboration’ when the family habitus is consistent with institutional habitus.Study parents are familiar with the mechanism of the school system and they are eager to show their voice during the process of home-school interaction.While the interaction between the peidu family and the school shows the feature of ‘nature’ when the family habitus is different from institutional habitus.Study parents do not know about the mechanism of the school system and they hold a passive attitude towards home-school interaction.Last but not least,peidu has an impact on forms of rural family structures and intergenerational relationships within families,as well as parents’ educational expectations.Different peidu strategies lead to different forms of family structures which are ‘core flow’,‘one family and two systems’ as well as ‘one family and three systems’.These forms are all child-center to make sure the family runs smoothly as a collective unit under the intergenerational contract.The importance and meaning of family life have been shifted from ancestors to grandchildren,and the reciprocal between intergenerational relations is changed therefore.Study parents hold an optimistic attitude to education which is regarded as an effective way to achieve social mobility,but structural factors of inequality are overlooked when they blame their kids for their academic failures,which masks inherent structural inequalities.Based on the above findings,I put forward the following suggestions to improve the unequal situation of rural peidu families: First,the government should increase its ability to regulate educational resources,and reduce the distinction between urban and rural structures on rural peidu families to obtain a high-quality school education,and ensure that rural students have more educational opportunities;schools need to pay attention to cultivating parents’ sense of home-school cooperation and implement family education counseling. |
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