China is experiencing phenomenal economic growth that is sustained by over 140 million rural migrant workers. Looking beyond the well-studied realm of adult migrant workers, graduate student Minhua Ling, under the guidance of Dr. Helen Siu, will undertake research on the coming-of-age experiences and prospects of migrant workers' children as shaped by the forces behind China's remarkable transformations.
The researcher will examine migrant workers' children in their last year of middle school in suburban Shanghai and rural Anhui. She will engage in multi-sited fieldwork linking schools, families, villages, urban enclaves, local administrations, and migration routes. The research is comparative, using three middle schools with contrasting compositions to parcel out the effects of migrant status on these children. Through case interviews, participant observations, and archival research, the project explores the children's parentage, schooling, job placement, and identity formation. It analyses how China's rural-urban divide is being complicated by lingering population controls, entrenched prejudices, and capitalist market forces. Through an in-depth look at the adolescence experiences of such an unsettled population, the research seeks to illustrate development priorities and the political ideals of social harmony translate into everyday life.
The dissertation will add to a much needed pool of empirical knowledge on the hard-to-track population of migrant children, found in many developing countries. This research thus has comparative value for understanding other rapidly urbanizing societies. Supporting this research also contributes to the education of a graduate student.
