Comparative Study on the Stratification of Education between Urban and Rural Areas in China

I explored how students and their parents in both urban and rural areas of China perceive their own educational experiences, as well as their ideas and perceptions of urban-rural educational stratification. Through in-depth interviews as well as thematic analysis, I identified three themes: the cultural spiral of the constructs of "identification" and "exclusion”; the differences in risk tolerance in sunk costs; breakdown and reconstruction of the moral order. Through the analysis of the themes, I came to the main conclusion that the stratification of education between urban and rural areas in China is very serious and is largely shaped by the social ideological cleavage between urban and rural areas. In the process of shaping the urban-rural education stratification phenomenon, the "Smallholder mentality" plays an important role and mechanism, and it is precisely because the "Smallholder mentality" exists in different depths and breadths between the urban and rural areas that the stratification between urban and rural education in China has not been able to be bridged. An in-depth study of the social and ideological mechanisms behind the urban-rural education stratification will help to better understand and solve the problem of urban-rural education stratification in China.