Do Rural Students Perform as Well as Their Urban Classmates? Evidence From Urban China

We investigate the academic performance gap between students with local rural and urban identities at the same schools in China. We find that in urban public schools, rural students achieve lower test scores than their urban counterparts. Evidence suggests that compared to their urban counterparts, rural students are recorded with lower personality traits, engaging in fewer teacher–student interactions, and receiving unfriendly attitudes from their urban peers, even though they appreciate the role of education as much as their urban counterparts do. To promote the human capital accumulation of rural students at local urban schools, we need to solve the above problems by enhancing their social integration.