Winner of the AERA Division B Outstanding Book Recognition Award
This book examines the dynamics surrounding the education of children in
the unofficial schools in China's urban migrant communities. This
ethnographic study focuses on both the complex structural factors
impacting the education of children attending unofficial migrant
children schools and the personal experiences of individuals working
within these communities. As the book illustrates in careful detail, the
migrant children schools serve a critical function in the community by
serving as a hub for organized collective action around shared
grievances related to issues of education, employment, wellbeing, and
other social rights. In turn, the development of a collective identity
among teachers, students, parents, and other members in the migrant
communities makes it possible for activists to begin to working to
address multiple forms of discrimination and maltreatment while
simultaneously moving towards the possibility of more profound social
transformation.