China's migrant children : lack of cultural capital and Hokou policy

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on October 19, 2012).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr. Peggy PlacierVita.Ph. D. University of Missouri--Columbia 2011."May 2011"This study documented sojourn experiences of Chinese rural-urban migrant children and their parents living in the host city of Chengdu, China. Previous studies on the migrant workers and their children tended to look at large-scale survey aggregate data on the migrant children's schooling experience in urban China. Common themes were identified in the previous studies such as migrant families' feeling discriminated, lack of sufficient money of living in the host city, etc. Results indicate that there was huge difference between migrant children's life style and their urban peers' life style, thus, leading an unequal childhood between these two groups. Although the Chinese central government has issued a number of proactive polices of helping migrant children attend local urban public school since 2003, the negative effect of Hukou policy still impacts migrant families' sojourn life in Chengdu, in particular, there exists an entrenched urban-rural divide in Chengdu between local urban residents and rural-urban migrant families.Includes bibliographical reference