Zhang, Yuping
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Publication Home environment and educational transitions on the path to college in rural northwest China(2014-01-01) Sargent, Tanja; Kong, Peggy; Zhang, YupingIn China, the National College Entrance Examination (gaokao) is an important gateway to future life outcomes. In this paper, we analyze longitudinal survey data from two waves (2004 and 2009) of the Gansu Survey of Children and Families to examine the home environment factors that predict successful transitions on the path to participation in the college entrance examination among rural youth in Gansu province. Our results show that parents play a crucial role in determining their children's life chances through their shaping of a nurturing home learning environment.Publication Family Sources of Educational Gender Inequality in Rural China: A Critical Assessment(2008-11-17) Hannum, Emily C.; Kong, Peggy A.; Zhang, YupingIn this paper, we investigate the gender gap in education in rural northwest China. We first discuss parental perceptions of abilities and appropriate roles for girls and boys; parental concerns about old-age support; and parental perceptions of different labor market outcomes for girls' and boys' education. We then investigate gender disparities in investments in children, children's performance at school, and children's subsequent attainment. We analyze a survey of nine to twelve year-old children and their families conducted in rural Gansu Province in the year 2000, along with follow-up information about subsequent educational attainment collected seven years later. We complement our main analysis with two illustrative case studies of rural families drawn from 11 months of fieldwork conducted in rural Gansu between 2003 and 2005 by the second author. In 2000, most mothers expressed egalitarian views about girls' and boys' rights and abilities, in the abstract. However, the vast majority of mothers still expected to rely on sons for old-age support, and nearly one in five mothers interviewed agreed with the traditional saying, "Sending girls to school is useless since they will get married and leave home." Compared to boys, girls faced somewhat lower (though still very high) maternal educational expectations and a greater likelihood of being called on for household chores than boys. However, there was little evidence of a gender gap in economic investments in education. Girls rivaled or outperformed boys in academic performance and engagement. Seven years later, boys had attained just about a third of a year more schooling than girls — a quite modest advantage that could not be fully explained by early parental attitudes and investments, or student performance or engagement. Fieldwork confirmed that parents of sons and daughters tended to have high aspirations for their children. Parents sometimes viewed boys as having greater aptitude, but tended to view girls as having more dedication — an attribute parents perceived as being critical for educational success. Findings suggest that at least in Gansu, rural parental educational attitudes and practices toward boys and girls are more complicated and less uniformly negative for girls than commonly portrayed.Publication The Hopes Carry Them On: Early Educational Expectations and Later Educational Outcomes in Rural Gansu, China(2012-01-01) Zhang, YupingIt is commonly held in the education literature that parents’ and children’s educational expectations are important factors in predicting children's educational achievement and attainment. However, very little is known about the significance of parents’ and children’s early expectations in developing country settings. This study employs a case study of children in 100 rural villages in a poor province in Northwest China to explore the impact of parents’ and children’s early expectations on children’s later school persistence and completion of compulsory and secondary education. I pay special attention to the agreement and disagreement in early educational expectations between parents and children. Results from analyses of longitudinal data from the Gansu Survey of Children and Families (GSCF) from 2000 to 2009 reveal two main results. First, parents’ and children’s early expectations are strong predictors of children's chances of staying in school, completing compulsory education and completing secondary education. Second, there are substantial discrepancies in expectations between parents and children in many families, but children whose high expectations aligned with their parents’ fared best in later educational outcomes. This positive impact held even for children from the most impoverished families. Results also show that parents’ expectations are tied to the local village cultural environment.