ABSTRACT

The past two decades have seen exponential growth of urbanisation and migration in China. Emerging from this growth is a population of floating and left-behind children which is estimated to be approaching 100 million. Due to their increasing risks of undesirable educational and social, as well as health and psychological, outcomes, there is a great urgency to help floating children and left-behind children beat the odds. This book offers an analysis of how oscillations of government discourse have come to shape central and local educational policies regarding the schooling of these children. It also delves into child and youth resilience in this unique migration context, examining what can be done to build up resilience of floating and left-behind children. In this vein, the book will complement current knowledge and advance context- and culture-specific understandings of child and youth resilience through both school-based and community-based approaches. The book aims to answer a fundamental question: How to help floating children and left-behind children become responsive and resilient to structural deficiencies and dynamics in the migration context of China? This is important reading for scholars, school professionals, community workers, and policy makers to better address the social and educational resilience and wellbeing of floating and left-behind children.

chapter 1|31 pages

Floating children and left-behind children in the migration context

A three-level field analysis of power, policy, and participation

chapter 2|39 pages

Seminal work, paradigmatic shifts, and foundational models

Approaching a sociology of child and youth resilience

chapter 3|33 pages

Quantifying child and youth resilience 1

Methodological conundrum and psychometric validation

chapter 4|26 pages

Resistance as a sociological process of resilience

Indigenous voices from under-resourced migrant families

chapter 5|23 pages

Recreation, socialisation, and resilience

The “magic” of physical activity

chapter 6|22 pages

Social capital and community-based resilience building

Social Network Analysis, social connectedness, and social support

chapter 7|21 pages

Resilience in the face of illness, fear, and stigma

Being floating, left behind, and HIV positive, so what?

chapter 8|14 pages

Developing a sociology of resilience

Reflexive learning and implications for practice, policy, and education