ERIC Number: EJ1162898
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1534-8458
EISSN: N/A
The Myth of "Migrants as Problems": Public School in Neoliberal Times and the Construction and Contestation of "Migrant" Identity
Huang, Enmou
Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, v16 n6 p381-394 2017
This article reports the findings of a sociolinguistic ethnographic inquiry into the constructions of internal rural-to-urban migrant students by one urban public school in China, and how these students positioned themselves to these constructions against the background of the school's neoliberal transformation. This inquiry finds that, due to the case school's pursuit of exam-performance-based academic excellence, its official documents discursively constructed migrant students as being of "low quality," and a problem for and potential danger to the school. However, the daily positioning practices of school administrators, teachers, and these students did not just reproduce this uniformly negative discursive construction; rather, they contested it in a complex and contradictory manner. This article offers further evidence showing the complexity of identity constructions in late modern urban schools, wherein professionals and students are all involved in a marketized education context that brings crises and dilemmas to institutions.
Descriptors: Misconceptions, Migrants, Neoliberalism, Urban Schools, Self Concept, Sociolinguistics, Ethnography, Foreign Countries, Rural Areas, Commercialization, Marketing, Student Characteristics, Educational Practices, School Administration, Discourse Analysis, Language Usage, Social Bias, Disadvantaged, Elementary Secondary Education
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A