In the context of China’s increasing rural-urban migration, few studies have investigated how parental migration affects children’s experience in school. The high cost of schooling, taken together with the institutional barriers in destination cities, have compelled many rural parents in China to migrate without their children, leaving them in the care of their spouses, grandparents, relatives or other caregivers. Still other parents migrate with their children, many of whom then attend urban migrant schools in their destination city. This co-authored paper seeks to understand the academic engagement of children of migrant workers is particularly salient, as the poor qualities of migrant schools, a lack of parental support, and exposure to competing alternatives to schooling may render both migrant children in the cities and left-behind children in the rural villages vulnerable to disengagement, and ultimately school dropout.
Chen, Shuang, Jennifer Adams, Zhiyong Qu, Xiaohua Wang, and Li Chen. "Parental migration and children's academic engagement: The case of China." International Review of Education 59, no. 6 (2013): 693-722.