Asia-Pacific Education, Language Minorities and Migration (ELMM) Network Working Paper Series
This site contains working papers for the Asia-Pacific Education, Language Minorities and Migration (ELMM) Network, a joint initiative of the University of Pennsylvania Population Studies Center and Graduate School of Education.
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Publication Habitus Transformation: Immigrant Mother’s Cultural Translation of Educational Strategies in Korea(2013-06-04) Jo, HyejeongThis study aims to examine the transformation of habitus through a case study of immigrant mothers who navigate a heated educational competition in South Korea. To illuminate the process of habitus change, this study investigates the ways in which immigrant mothers make sense of a unique educational cultural practice of Korean parents, which is heavy reliance on shadow education.Publication It's Not Just About the Money: Motivations for Youth Migration in Rural China(2013-02-18) Chiang, Yilin; Kao, GraceThis study investigates the incentives for labor migration of youth in rural China using panel data from the Gansu Survey of Children and Families, a longitudinal study of youth in rural Gansu Province of China. We investigate the individual and altruistic economic motivations featured prominently in demographic and economic research on migration. However, we propose that the non-economic goal of personal development, a motivation suggested in numerous qualitative studies of women migrants in China and elsewhere, is also important, especially for young migrants. Analyzes indicate that, while young men and young women hold different motivations for migration, the desire for personal development is a common motivator for young migrants. Results suggest that non-economic incentives may play an important role in youth migration in rural China and that positioning in family structures shapes the susceptibility of individuals to migrate due to altruistic economic motivations.Publication Ethnicity, Socioeconomic Status, and Social Welfare in China(2010-01-01) Hannum, Emily C.; Wang, MeiyanThis chapter investigates poverty and social welfare among China’s minority groups. Focusing on the Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, and Uygur populations, China’s five largest minority groups, as well as other minorities in the aggregate, this chapter will begin by providing an introduction to the classification of ethnic groups in China. We consider the relationship of this classification scheme to the concept of indigenous populations, and develop working definitions of minority status and ethnic group for use in the chapter. We then discuss recent economic trends and introduce some of the main government policies targeted toward ethnic minorities. With this context established, we introduce the data employed in the chapter, namely the 2002 rural sample of the Chinese Household Income Project and recent censuses and surveys. We then proceed to the main body of the report. We present empirical evidence about demographics and geography and investigate ethnic disparities in poverty rates, income and employment, educational access and attainment, health care, and access to social programs. We close with a summary of main findings and their implications for development activities in minority areas and for further policy research on ethnic stratification.Publication Publication Editors’ introduction: Emerging issues for educational research in East Asia(2010-05-12) Hannum, Emily C.; Park, Hyunjoon; Goto Butler, YukoIn recent decades, globalization and regional integration have brought significant economic and demographic changes in East Asia, including rising economic inequality, growing population movements within and across borders, and the emergence or renewed geopolitical significance of cultural and linguistic minority populations. These trends have coincided with significant changes in family formation, dissolution, and structures. How have these changes played out in the diverse educational systems of East Asia? In what innovative ways are East Asian governments addressing the new demographic realities of their student populations? This volume offers a snapshot of key educational stratification issues in East Asian nations, and their evolution in conjunction with changing student populations. Scholars of Japan, China, and Korea in this volume address issues ranging from curricular adaptations to globalization, to persisting and new forms of educational stratification, to new multiculturalism in educational policy. In addition, authors consider the ways that migration is shaping education in the city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore. Collectively, the pieces in this volume represent a first attempt to investigate national responses to critical regional trends.Publication Sociological Perspectives on Ethnicity and Education in China: Views from Chinese and English Literatures(2013-04-17) Cherng, Hua-Yu Sebastian; Lu, ChunpingThis paper reviews Chinese- and English-language literature on ethnic minorities and education in China. Six major research topics emerge from the Chinese-language research: (1) Marxism and ethnic minority education; (2) patriotism and national unity in education for ethnic minority students; (3) multicultural education; (4) determinants of ethnic differences in education; (5) school facilities and teacher quality; and (6) preferential / affirmative action policies. Four research themes are identified from the English-language literature: (1) policy overviews; (2) education and ethnic identity; (3) incentives and disincentives for buy-in to the education system; and (4) educational stratification. The majority of quantitative research from both Chinese- and English-language literature investigates ethnic minorities as a collective group. Qualitative research focuses on individual ethnic groups, although no one group is the focus of particular attention. More qualitative studies currently exist, but the number of quantitative studies is growing, given the growing availability of survey and census data containing information on ethnic minorities. Both literatures focus on the complex interrelationships of ethnicity with cultural, policy, development, and language issues. Yet, these literatures draw on different ideological starting points, conform to different norms of academic composition, and speak to different audiences in different sociopolitical contexts. For these reasons, the English literature tends to adopt a more critical tone. Overall, very little of the work in either language comes from the field of sociology of education. More comparatively and theoretically framed work is needed to enable the Chinese experience to be informed by and inform global research in sociology of education.Publication Parental factors and early English education as a foreign language: A case study in Mainland China(2013-05-08) Goto Butler, YukoAs English has increasingly become associated with social and economic power in the context of globalization, there has been a growing concern regarding achievement gaps in English that appear to be correlated to learners’ socio-economic status (SES). The present study aims to examine how parents’ SES and their behaviors and beliefs about English education relate to their children’s English language learning, and how such relationships may differ across different grade levels. The participants were fourth, sixth and eighth grade students who had learned English from the third grade level (572 students in total) together with their parents in a medium-sized city in China. An extensive parental survey revealed that while parental beliefs about English education and their beliefs about their children’s success in acquiring English did not differ between different SES groups, their direct behaviors (such as providing direct assistance for their children to learn English) and their indirect behaviors (such as the home literacy environment and indirect modeling they provided) showed significant differences by the fourth grade level. Combined with the students’ learning outcome data, it was found that while the parents’ SES did not show much effect on their children’s listening and reading/writing performance during their elementary school years, it did indicate an effect on their speaking abilities at the fourth grade level, if not earlier. This paper suggests the importance of incorporating socio-economic dimensions in theorizing second and foreign language acquisition (SLA), which are largely missing in current major approaches in SLA.Publication Who Goes, Who Stays, and Who Studies? Gender, Migration, and Educational Decisions among Rural Youth in China(2012-05-25) Chiang, Yilin; Kao, GraceLittle is known about what affects the decision to migrate in China, despite the estimated 145 million rural migrants that reside in urban areas as of 2009. Drawing on a survey of youth from 100 villages in Gansu Province, we analyze migration and education decisions, with a focus on disparities associated with gender, sibship structure, and academic performance. Results show modest gender differences favoring boys in educational migration, but no gender differences in the overall likelihood of labor migration. Youth with older sisters are less likely to migrate, while youth with younger brothers are more likely to migrate. For girls, having older sisters is also negatively related to being a local or a migrant student, and better early academic performance is related to educational migration. For boys, labor migration may serve as a backup plan in the event of failing the high school entrance examination. Overall, results shed more light on the factors shaping educational migration than labor migration.Publication Linguistic Capital, Information Access and Economic Opportunity among Rural Young Adults in Western China*(2014-01-01) Hannum, Emily C.; Cherng, Huayu SebastianFacility with a country’s dominant language, a key form of linguistic capital, has a role to play in processes of social stratification and mobility, and this role is poorly understood. We have sought, in this paper, to explore access to this form of linguistic capital, and the implications of possessing linguistic capital, for a group of young adults who have been historically disadvantaged: rural young adults in western minority areas. Three main results emerge. First, there is a great deal of variability in linguistic capital, defined as standard Mandarin facility, across provinces and ethnic groups covered in the CHES sample. The greatest gap appears in Xinjiang, where Han residents have very high facility in standard Mandarin, and where minority residents report very low facility. In some provinces in the CHES sample, there are minimal differences between majority and minority populations. Second, standard Mandarin facility is tied to information access, in the form of Internet use. Facility in minority languages is not. Third, Mandarin facility, but not minority language facility, is linked to economic opportunity in young adulthood.