Atención nocturna

In Bourdieu’s Reproduction Theory, “habitus” is not only reproductive but can be transformative in the field as well. Moreover, an inclusive trend has developed in education for migrant children as a replacement for segmentation or assimilation to solve migrants’ cross-cultural and social adaptation issues. The Inclusive Education Model, which aims to eliminate education access barriers between different cultural systems so that culturally disadvantaged groups can be given more attention for the sake of multi-cultural harmonious coexistence, has already become a power challenging education’s exclusive side.

Deriving from the “integration” and “return to the mainstream” philosophy in special education, the inclusive education model became an international trend from the 1990s to encourage children with disabilities or any special education

170 needs or in culturally disadvantaged positions to study in ordinary schools, which involved changes and modifications to content, approaches, structures and strategies (UNESCO, 2003). Based on UNESCO’s “Guidelines for inclusion: ensuring access to education for all” (UNESCO, 2006), “Inclusive Education” is clearly defined as “increasing learning culture and community participation, and reducing the education system’s internal and external rejection to deal with the diversity of learners’ needs and process” (Zhou, 2008c).

According to these guidelines, “inclusivity” is an attitude of acceptance, belongingness and a sense of community. Accordingly, within an inclusive education model, education systems and practices are restructured with a view to meeting the distinctive needs of children who come from disadvantaged groups that often encounter institutionalized barriers and cultural exclusion to their learning. Schools, teachers, parents and social workers all need to take part in providing equal opportunities for joining campus activities to all students, especially enabling special students to get educated in ordinary classrooms just like others (Deng and Pan, 2003). Unlike traditional education which uses a unified cultural standard to select “social elites”, inclusive education is a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of all children, youth and adults through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities, and reducing and eliminating the exclusion and assimilation of different cultures into one stream. Contrary to education reproduction, this “education for all” theory aims at improving cultural coexistence, communications and social mobility (UNESCO, 2003).

When looking at Chinese education for rural migrant children, many education policies were set up to help rural students have equal opportunities to study in the city together with urban registered students. For example, in public schools, instead of educating students separately based on their household registration status, schools must randomly select students to join each class. Moreover, public schools are required to develop various activities to improve communication between rural and urban students, such as arranging summer camps in rural areas in order to help urban native students better understand the countryside, and delivering psychological counselling services to help rural students deal with the stress arising from their social adaptation difficulties, as I mentioned in Chapter

171 3. These education settings may be able to improve social equity and open communication between rural and urban communities, which is in accordance with the inclusive education philosophy. As mentioned in the policy documents, the aim of China’s “education for all” policy is to improve multi-cultural development rather than to produce social elites and to eliminate other students who fall behind. Accordingly, the Chinese inclusive education setting is the opposite of the essential rules of the traditional education model, which may challenge education’s reproduction role. In fact, based on students’ responses, it looks as though Chinese inclusive education has already played a positive role in promoting mutual communication between rural and urban students, leading to rural students’ better social adaptation and higher expectations for their future. Many rural and urban students expressed in the interviews that thanks to this “education together” model, they have changed their initial impressions of rural- urban differences. Through more direct communications with their counterparts in public schools, they have established a more comprehensive understanding of different household registration groups, rather than only relying on stereotypes to judge people.

‘I used to think urban people are likely to look down on rural people. However, my classmates here are all very nice. No one would treat me differently, even if they all knew I came from a rural migrant family. Many of us have grown up together since primary school, and my best friend is also an urban-registered student.’ (No.31, Rural-registered student, School B, Female)

‘I think there is no difference between rural-registered and urban- registered students. At first, I thought rural students may be not interested in joining in our topics as we talk about fashion, video games and many other things besides studying. However, after having a discussion with my desk mate (a rural student), I realized that rural students share similar topics to us. My desk mate can even beat me in the video game. How cool is he?’ (No.23, Urban-registered student, School A, Male)

Additionally, not only did communication between rural and urban students help rural students’ social integration, but it prompted rural students to have higher

172 expectations for their futures as well. As demonstrated in Chapter 7, compared with rural students from private schools, rural students from public schools have higher expectations for their academic achievement. Moreover, rural students from public schools are more likely to stay in the city and continue their education in senior high schools, which is similar to urban natives. In the interviews, many rural students from public schools stated that learning from urban students, they had new plans for their futures. Even though sometimes competition with urban natives brings pressures on rural students, they can also make us of this competition. From these rural students’ perspectives, pressure is also power to stimulate them to study harder.

‘Before I came to public school, I just thought to finish my study in high school, no need to go on further to university. However, many of my urban classmates aims to get their degrees in universities. For them, a high school degree means nothing but a loser in study. Therefore, I should catch up with them and study as hard as I can.’ (No.07, Rural-registered student, School A, Female)

Eventually, benefitting from being educated together, rural students from public schools successfully lived in a more urbanised way and had more ambitious plans when thinking about their futures. The Chinese inclusive education model, educating rural and urban students together in public schools, may have created an inclusive environment which provided open communications between rural and urban students. Consequently, this inclusive environment may help rural migrant children deal with the rural-urban differences they encounter in the city, and adapt to their urban lives in a more proactive way.

In conclusion, education in public schools has both inclusive and exclusive influences on rural students’ social adaptation process. On one hand, although Chinese inclusive education has taken some special education measures based on the values of inclusive education, public schools in the city still stay within the urban general education system. Therefore, some of public schools’ education settings, like how to define A-level students and how to graduate from school, still obey the rules of the general education system. Consequently, based on Bourdieu’s reproduction theory, schools may become a tool of social reproduction.

173 As a result, the general education settings in public schools, like many other schools, may have a negative influence on rural students’ cultural adaptation process: it expands cultural exclusion to consolidate social reproduction. On the other hand, unlike schools run exclusively for children of migrant workers or other urban schools which do not have inclusive education systems, public schools have some special education settings based on an inclusive value system and inclusive education policy model. These particular education reforms, aiming to eliminate the barriers between different cultural systems and pay more attention to disadvantaged cultural groups for multi-cultural harmonious coexistence and communication, may increase the inclusive side of education and become a power against education’s exclusive side.