“But, I am a Nonlocal”: Identity, Schooling and Belonging among “Elite” Rural Migrant Youth in Urban China”

Abstract

This article analyzes identity patterns among “elite,” Chinese rural migrant youth who attend Shanghai public schools. As high-achieving students who are school leaders, “elite” migrant children constitute a minority group who are effectively integrated into their public schools. Since inclusive reforms “opened up” public schools to promote migrant youth’s urban belonging, this study explores the role public schools play in identity formation. Drawing on interview and participant-observational data in two Shanghai public schools, I explore the following questions: How do “elite” migrant children make sense of their identity? What role do school and macro-structural context play in their identity formation? In this study, both schools realize their potential to cultivate a sense of school membership among “elite” migrant youth. While these “elite” students are valued members of their school, I argue that schools possess limited agency to create belonging to the broader municipal community. The majority of “elite” migrant students identified as “non-local,” attributing their urban exclusion from post-compulsory education as the main factor. Ultimately, such macro-structural exclusion limits schools’ potential as spaces of urban belonging. Importantly, this article illuminates the heterogeneity among Chinese rural migrant youth. Noticeably absent in the literature on China’s second generation, rural-to-urban migrant youth are the experiences of “elite” migrant youth. To date, the majority of research focuses on the marginality of non-elite, Chinese migrant children. More broadly, this work explores the potential that schools hold to cultivate a sense of belonging for vulnerable students, while also identifying the challenges facing schools to realize this promise.