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.

Min Yu is Assistant Professor in the Teacher Education Division in the College of Education at Wayne State University, USA. She holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA and has contributed to several edited books on minority education and migrant movements in China.