Assistance at the Starting Line: Rural Education Competition and Rural Student Development

Overview & Synopsis

Rural education competition has emerged as an irreversible trend in China's rural regions. From the perspective of life course, it is mainly reflected in the divergence of education trajectories for rural students before college enrollment. The study of rural education competition and its consequences holds significant practical implications for comprehending rural education in China and the associated educational inequality, but no systematic study has been conducted. This study takes the operation of rural education competition as the education trajectory, aiming to explore the relationship between rural education competition and the development of Chinese rural students. Firstly, based on a large-scale survey of more than 30,000 higher vocational students (2022), this study used machine learning methods to extract rural students' typical education trajectories. Then, based on the typical education trajectories, the regression model was used to assess the relationship between rural students' education competition before college and intention to enter higher level education after college, and the mediating role of college academic performance. It was found that the four typical education trajectories reflected different degrees of rural education competition, and there were significant gender differences, parents' educational degree differences, and "resource dilution" effects for non-only children between trajectories. Further, rural education competition significantly improved intention to enter higher level education of rural students. As an mediating variable, college academic performance exhibited a significant positive correlation with rural education competition, intensifying educational inequality among rural students to a certain extent. This study focuses on the performance and consequence of rural education competition, innovatively using the education trajectory in combination with the life course perspective, expanding new boundaries, and providing new perspectives for rural education research.