Journal Articles
Abstract
Researchers have sought perspectives from students, parents, teachers, and school administrators to investigate the educational status of migrant children. This study sheds new light on the same topic by adopting the perspectives of local government officials. Specifically, it investigates the practices advocated by local governments to improve the educational equity of migrant children and the barriers they may encounter. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with government officials working in a provincial education department in East China. The findings indicated that the practices advocated by the local government showed the following five characteristics: (1) the key practices implemented by the local government were almost exclusively related to migrant children’s access to education, (2) the local government paid greater attention to the primary and lower secondary stages of migrant children’s education, (3) there was no task force dedicated to migrant children’s education, (4) although several government agencies worked on migrant children’s education, the provincial education department played a leading role, and (5) the local government did not work closely with private schools on migrant children’s education because of a lack of trust. Evidence from this study also suggests three key barriers to promoting educational equity: lack of educational resources, uneven distribution of good teachers, and lack of reform of the household registration system. These findings have important implications for re-evaluating policies and practices promoting educational equity for Chinese migrant children at the state and regional levels.
Citation
Deng, R., & Gao, Y. (2024). Practices and barriers to promoting educational equity for migrant children in China from the perspective of a local government. SAGE Open, 14(3), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440241269979
Abstract
With the advent of the digital age, cultivating students’ digital media literacy has become an important educational mission. A standardized digital media literacy scale was developed to study the digital media literacy of primary school students in urban and rural areas. Through stratified random sampling, a total of 2,848 urban and rural primary school students participated in this research. Primary school students exhibited moderate proficiency in digital media literacy, with a notable deficiency in their ability to create and disseminate information effectively. Subsequent investigations revealed disparities in the level of digital media literacy between urban and rural students, which appeared in their proficiency to access and use digital tools, as well as their ability to understand and evaluate media messages. Parental education, parental mediation, and time spent using digital devices all have a substantial positive influence on students’ digital media literacy, with parental mediation having the greatest impact. Consequently, it is imperative to prioritize the development of higher-order digital media literacy skills in students. Efforts should also be directed toward enhancing the basic digital media literacy of rural primary school students while fostering parental engagement in students’ digital education. In this regard, the Chinese government, enterprises, and schools have launched measures to promote rural students’ digital media literacy and parents’ involvement in students’ digital education. Future research should prioritize investigations of the efficacy of these measures to ascertain their impact on the holistic development of digital media literacy among all students.
Citation
Sun, J., Yang, Z., Chen, S., & Deng, R. (2024). Exploring the disparity in digital media literacy between urban and rural primary school students: Insights from an empirical study in China. Frontiers of Digital Education, 1(2), 178‒197. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44366-024-0003-1