Teachers’ Perceptions of Educational Inclusion for Migrant Children in Chinese Urban Schools: A Cohort Study

Abstract

In recent decades, China has observed increasing numbers of rural–urban migrant children seeking education in Chinese cities, resulting in pressure on urban schools to accommodate these children. Drawing on pre- and post-survey and interview data with 215 primary school teachers in a metropolitan city in East China, the objectives of this article are to describe teachers’ perceptions of educational inclusion in both migrant and public schools, and to investigate changes in their beliefs from 2013 to 2016. Urban public school teachers indicated significant differences in perceptions compared with their first test, whereas no salient differences in perceptions was found among migrant school teachers. The qualitative analysis echoed the quantitative findings and provided further explanation for the complexity and particularity of these changes. Our study revealed that public schools have made great reforms in relation to educational inclusion for migrant students and that these initiatives in turn have produced changes on teachers’ perceptions and practices with migrant children. It should be noted, however, that teachers attribute the changes in their perceptions to external factors rather than the internal ones. In the light of these findings, the article discusses implications for further professional development programs for teachers in Chinese migrant schools.