School-gentrifying community in the making in China: Its formation mechanisms and socio-spatial consequences

Abstract

School gentrification has been powerful in reshaping urban demographic and socio-economic spaces, but less well-known is its formation mechanisms and socio-spatial consequences. The emerging school-gentrifying community in China's context was taken as an example to explore the interrelationships among education, real estate, and gentrification. The analysis showed that in the context of educational inequity and educational reform, the combination of private school and real estate project spawned the school-gentrifying community, which is built on a “real estate and elite school” model. School gentrification has strong embeddedness, its formation mechanisms in China's context are more complex and highly related to real estate projects and local government's “land finance” policy. The emergence of school-gentrifying community inevitably causes the marginalization of urban poor, but it contributes to a balanced distribution of educational resources and diversification of educational providers. Valuing the role of school gentrification in shaping urban physical and social-economic spaces has significant implications on the making of education and urban development policies.