While China has experienced unprecedented economic growth, with the increased population flow, migrants have become another prominent group that suffers from social exclusion. This study aims to explore the virtual effects and outcomes of national policies implementation regarding education of migrant students in Shanghai, and to find how national policy formulating and goals to interpret and to implement in local and school level? What is the status quo and real effects? Drawing data from migrant schools, it further interpreted contexts of practices in virtual schools and demonstrated the dynamics and tensions between national and local interests. This paper tried to adopt context of practice (Richard and Stephen 2017) and place (Honig 2006) to explore the status quo, and to analyze the gap and conflict between policy making and policy practice for migrant children in Shanghai, especially “placing” of schools, teachers and students in the policy process. By utilizing Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural and social capital, field, and habitus, we also try to answer how and why social background and social identity of migrant children influence their educational experience and their social position in Shanghai. In order to answer these questions, we try to use qualitative methods with semi-structured interviews (7 principals, 71 teachers and 69 students, selected by gender, birth city, discipline, age, education, working experiences, etc) were adopted to gather data in the selected 10 migrant schools of Shanghai, where enrolled 100% migrant children of subaltern social groups. The further triangulated data from 100 classroom observations and document analysis. Our findings show that according to local policy implementation, migrant children mostly located in the suburban and fringe areas, especially placed in the migrant children schools, separating from local students. Then because of the big differences among mandarin, Shanghai dialects and regional dialects, they stayed more with townsman groups, and placing nearly the certain limited and subaltern areas with originally regional habitus and cultural practice, like their eating habits and social network, etc, which are marginalized and excluded from the Shanghai society. When we tried to explain these phenomenon, we find that firstly there exists big gap and conflict between national policy making and local policy practice, which placed migrant children in the margin of society; then their cultural practice and habitus separate them furtherly and reproduce differences in their regular life through transmitting their migrant culture by peer selection and also “migrant teachers” in school, etc.

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