[Xmca-l] Re: "Scaling up" and "Big ideas"

[Peg Griffin]

Thanks, David.  Yes, the "hukou" is a part of the reason that the parents can't take the children with them and put them in a city public school.  
The catch 22 is that the places the children have "hukou" for are losing the public schools  (all those people moving to the city, don't you know, so be rational and close those village  schools). So the children can't go to the schools that the parents attended where they learned enough to get jobs in the city...


-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 5:07 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "Scaling up" and "Big ideas"

Peg:

I'm afraid I don't know of any activists you could contact in China. But it seems to me that the account you have of the "left behind" families leaves out one possibly relevant piece of information. China still has a system of "hukou", which involves local registration, and functions something like the internal passport system did in Tsarist Russia and also in Vygotsky's time.

For example, my wife's hukou was in the western city of Xi'an. This meant that she couldn't legally move to the east, towards the coast, and still receive social services, such as schooling for any children she might have (because hukou is matrilineal). People from the countryside cannot receive urban "hukou" unless they either join the army or are admitted to university (and if they go to university they are often required to return to the countryside upon graduation unless their alma mater can offer them employment). Without "hukou", employment is not legal (although possible).
Schooling is out of the question. As usual, there are ways around these things. My niece's hukou was in a remote rural area, because my sister-in-law was born there, but after many years of struggle, my brother-in-law was able to purchase an urban hukou for her, and she now goes to school in the city with other children.

The obvious parallel for Westerners with no experience of internal passports is the external passport system--while capital can move freely in the west, in order to move across borders, a worker has to arrange work with an employer, and if the worker does so in a way that is perceived by the government or the locals as "illegal" or undocumented then they may not receive education and social services and they may have to leave children behind as a result. This happens in the USA along the border, and the demagogic campaigns carried out around immigration in places like Arizona are designed to aggravate it to the point where "self-deportation" occurs.
(You remember that in the last election, Mitt Romney crafted a whole immigration policy around the persecution of foreign-born workers, especially those with children.)

I think that, as in the West, the main activist groups you will find around this issue in China will be lobbying within the government and within Communist Party for the abolition of "hukou". In some areas of southern China (e.g. the Pearl River delta, there are actually businessmen who find it hard to round up cheap labor now. So there are lots of wealthy industrialists in the CCP now who would like to see the end of hukou and more flexibility in the labor market, just as some entrepreneurs in Texas would like to see immigration reform--it will greatly assist the process of driving down workers' wages.

David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

On 18 March 2015 at 23:11, Peg Griffin <Peg.Griffin@att.net> wrote:

> This thread seems good to ask for advice for this situation:  A young 
> woman from China is pursuing a Master's Degree in Early Childhood 
> Education in the US in a program that provides language and "hidden 
> curriculum" sorts of transition support for students visiting from 
> other countries.  She is very concerned about the "left behind 
> children" in China.  There is much coverage about these 
> families/children in Chinese media and some in US and some other 
> countries.  I'm hoping that someone on the list knows of an activist 
> and/or research groups that this young woman might locate (in any 
> country).  She perseveres and tries hard to find ways toward the solution side of problems.
>
> The problem as she explains it (and as we have been able to find 
> information from naïve web searching) is this:  Parents move (from 
> rural areas or less prosperous often smaller cities) to larger cities 
> where they can make closer to a living wage for the family.  Children 
> are left behind, usually with grandparents, because finances and legal 
> requirements make it a problem for them to go with the parents.  BUT, 
> at the same time, in the places where the children are left behind, 
> public schools the parents went to have been closed or are closing; 
> the alternatives require tuition as well as book and supply fees.  
> Money the parents send back to those left behind help with increasing 
> costs of food, shelter, health, clothing but can seldom spread enough 
> for tuition so children -- especially after grade
> 2 -- have no schooling.  Travel costs usually prohibit more than one 
> meeting a year of all three generations. Phone communication is often 
> once a week, though. A Chinese term usually translated as "left 
> behind" is used a great deal in discussions in China about this.
>
> Any references to quality readings or people will be greatly appreciated.
> PG on behalf of YL
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Huw Lloyd
> Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 5:28 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Cc: xmca-l@ucsd.edu
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "Scaling up" and "Big ideas"
>
> Sure, Greg.
>
> Perhaps the author would benefit from reading Illich, "The siren of 
> one ambulance can destroy Samaritan attitudes in a whole Chilean town".
>
> This is simply one example of the failings of formal logic, or as 
> Illich refers to it, iatrogenesis (note the genetic semantics).
>
> Huw
>
> On 18 March 2015 at 03:51, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I just came across this nice article by Michael Hobbes in the New
> Republic:
> >
> > http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120178/problem-international-deve
> > lo
> > pment-and-plan-fix-it
> >
> > In it, he argues against the notion that there are simple big ideas 
> > that can easily be scaled up in international development.
> >
> > This seems like an argument that could just as easily have been made 
> > about education in any major nation state (and he does touch on 
> > education a number of times, but it isn't at the center of his critique).
> >
> > Curious if others agree.
> > -greg
> >
> > --
> > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > Assistant Professor
> > Department of Anthropology
> > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > Brigham Young University
> > Provo, UT 84602
> > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >
>
>
>