Critical Review on the Trajectory of Educational Policymaking and How Migrant Children Have Been Affected in China

This book review essay critically analyses the scholarly contribution and limitations of Yu’s Migration and Educational Policymaking in China: A Critical Engagement with Policy Sociology and Bourdieu (2022). The essay primarily criticises how, while Yu adopts Bourdieu’s concept of fields to develop the theoretical framework for his research on the trajectory of educational policymaking in China, he overlooks the importance of including alternative, relevant Bourdieu’s concepts in his discussion. These concepts include capital, habitus and social and cultural reproduction of inequality (and how these intertwine with social immobility). The author, however, appreciates Yu’s efforts in the exploration of localised education and related policies for migrant children in five first-tier Chinese cities, especially in how a comparative approach is exercised. The author believes Yu’s book, despite a number of criticisms and scepticism, adds significant scholarly values to help academic researchers who have a disposition to present policy recommendations, along with postgraduate students of interest, enrich their understanding of how educational policymaking differs between different localised Chinese contexts and evolves in the past decades.