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China has undertaken a process of rapid social transformation since the late 1970s. One of the most significant aspects of this phenomenon is the massive rural-to-urban migration of domestic labourers. Many migrants also bring their children with them when they move to China's largest urban centres. There are an estimated 35 million children from migrant families in China, among them roughly 13.95 million are between 6 and 14 years old,1 meaning that they are classified as being of compulsory education age in China.2 While potential issues stemming from worker migration and the accompanying hypermobility of school-age children present many types of concerns commonly discussed in the research literature – such as gaps in knowledge, differences in culture, language and identity, concerns about well-being, among other issues3 – the effects of this phenomenon within contemporary Chinese contexts remain understudied and in significant need of further exploration, particularly as it relates to the politics surrounding Chinese education policies.
This article examines policies directly related to the education of migrant children living in and around China's largest urban centres, with a specific focus on those implemented in Beijing. It is here where the education of migrant children is being contested and policy debates over access to education are currently unfolding. This study seeks to 1) examine a series of local regulations put forth by the municipal and district governments of Beijing in response to state policies; and 2) analyse how these education policies develop and reflect the politics of population control at the local level.
Policy implementation, or enactment, is a process that is “far from straightforward and rational and produces a number of social relations, positions, practices and performances.”4 Previous studies have examined the development of both state and local policies in China with regard to issues of educating migrant children in urban cities.5 This existing research literature largely discusses education policies as regulating the actions or practices of different stakeholders or institutions that deal with the education of migrant children and addresses the role of established power structures, including the mechanisms through which they operate both within and across social fields. However, studies have yet to examine how these policies function to transform the identities of...