To comply or not to comply? Migrants’ responses to educational barriers in large cities in China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Migrant children in Chinese cities face educational barriers due to the lack of a local household registration (hukou). Based on in-depth interviews with migrant families conducted between 2015–19 in Shanghai, and court judgments of the administrative litigations on migrant children’s education covering 13 large cities released by the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China, this Research Note examines migrants’ responses to educational barriers and the consequential educational trajectories in large cities in China. Specifically, we identify and analyze nine responses in two categories: compliance, including policy followers, vocational school attendees, returnees, and remigrating children; and noncompliance, including policy benders, policy by-passers, dropouts, petitioners, and lawsuit filers. Every response contains various actions, incurs different costs, and achieves different educational outcomes. We also discuss how the educational barriers exert pressure upon certain migrants to engage in noncomplying rather than complying conduct.