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Segmented Incorporation: The Second Generation of Rural Migrants in Shanghai*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2014

Pei-chia Lan
Pei-chia Lan*
Affiliation:
National Taiwan University. Email: pclan@ntu.edu.tw.
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Abstract

This article looks at the changing frameworks for the institutional and cultural incorporation of second-generation rural migrants in Shanghai. Beginning in 2008, Shanghai launched a new policy of accepting migrant children into urban public schools at primary and secondary levels. I show that the hukou (household registration) is still a critical social boundary in educational institutions, shaping uneven distribution of educational resources and opportunities, as well as hierarchical recognition of differences between urbanites and migrants. I have coined the term “segmented incorporation” to characterize a new receiving context, in which systematic exclusion has given way to more subtle forms of institutional segmentation which reproduces cultural prejudice and reinforces group boundaries.

Keywords

internal migrationpeasant workerChinasecond generationsegmented assimilation
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 217 , March 2014 , pp. 243 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I thank Tseng Yen-Fen, Hyunjoon Park, Martin Whyte, Macabe Keliher and two anonymous reviewers for their comments. I also appreciate the assistance of Chen Yenchun, Ho Xiao, Li Yao-Tai, Jiang Hoching, Xiong Yihan, Ma Li, Ling Minhua, Wu Jieh-Min and Chen Chih-Jou. The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Council in Taiwan (NSC 97-2410-H-002-064, 98-2410-H-002-136). This article was completed during my visiting fellowship at Harvard Radcliffe and Yenching Institute in 2011–12.

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