Research Background

Boarding education is seen as a vital educational strategy for rural students as it could save students' time for commuting between home and school (Wang, et al., 2017), improve low-SES students’ academic performance (Foliano, 2019), save students from dangerous habits and behaviours (Bass, 2014), avoid child labour (Finnan, 2020), and help disadvantaged students gain cultural, social, and educational capital (Bass, 2014; Yao et al., 2015). Meanwhile, concerns are raised that boarding schools have negative impacts on boarders’ cultural identity, connection with their rural hometown, home language (Bass, 2014; Su et al., 2018; Finnan, 2020), wellbeing (Bass, 2014; Su et al., 2018). There are also other issues relating to rural students attending boarding schools that they lack of parental care while boarding in school and are undernutrition (Luo et al., 2009). In China, boarding school has become an open choice and popular among parents (Tan and Bodovski, 2020). However, few studies have drawn their attention to rural students attending boarding schools in China. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the educational provision and experiences of rural students attending rural and suburban boarding schools in middle China. The research questions are as follows.

Research Questions

Overarching question:

RQ1 How does the provision and experience of education for rural students compare in rural and suburban boarding schools?

Background RQs:

RQ2 What factors explain the parental choice of schools in rural and suburban China?

RQ3 Why do rural and suburban boarding schools educate children from rural areas?

Key questions:

RQ4 To what extent and in what ways do rural and suburban boarding schools include and/or exclude children from rural areas?

RQ5 How do children from rural areas experience inclusion/exclusion in rural and suburban boarding schools?

Comparative question:

RQ6 How do the findings in response to the questions above compare between rural and suburban boarding schools?  

Research Methods This is a mixed-methods study that uses multiple case studies as the research framework. Four public boarding schools are selected in middle China, two of them are rural schools, and the other two schools are suburban schools. Using the MMR approach to data collection will allow the researcher to compare and cross-check the results (Atkins, 2012). There are four phases for the data collection that relate to the instrumental research questions. The first phase starts with quantitative questionnaires with parents. The questionnaires therefore can help understand a larger number of parents’ perspectives on school choice and on the boarding school, their children attend. The second phase is to investigate at an institutional level – whether and why school leaders and practitioners consider it to be important to educate children from rural areas in boarding schools. Methods including semi-structured interviews with school staff, ethnographic observations, and documents have been gathered to understand this research question. Then, at an individual level, students’ interactions with schools (inclusion/exclusion) were studied with ethnographic methods, documents, semi-structured interviews (with staff), and visual methods (images). School timetables, facilities, classes, dormitories, canteens, after-class activities, school discipline and rules, policies, images, and documents have been observed and collected in the field notes. Finally, students’ experiences in rural and suburban boarding schools will be studied with classroom observations and focused group discussions. Data Analysis Initial data analysis (both within- and cross-case analysis) has been conducted in the field, which can make sure that the emerging findings will be checked during fieldwork, as well as the balanced focusing on issues of each case. The qualitative and quantitative data are analysed differently to answer different research questions. Questionnaire data have been analysed through the software SPSS to explore the factors that explaining parental choice. Thematic analysis of qualitative data has been conducted by NVivo software. A revising of the entire data set is used to explore areas that have not been recognised in the emerging analysis during the field. The displayed data from each case are compared to answer the question asked of findings across multiple cases in both rural and suburban settings.

Initial Findings and Conclusions The analysis of the data is still in progress and therefore there are only preliminary results yet, the analysis will be completed well in advance of the conference. The initial findings of RQ1-RQ5 are as follows. RQ1 - Four schools have provided similar school environments in terms of students' boarding and study environments. Students live in the schools on weekdays, their activities are shaped by a strict timetable and are separated from the outside world. RQ2 - The higher the education and income of rural parents, the more detailed the requirements for their children's school choices and the clearer the plans for their students' future development. Additionally, household registration is one of the factors that has an impact on parental choice, families with rural households are more passive in their choice of schools, preferring to send their children to schools close to home. RQ3 - Boarding school is regarded as a substitution for rural students who lack family support. Boarding schools give rural students the promise of a brighter future. RQ4 - Most of the teachers participated agreed that the school was not inclusive of all students - the extra curriculum, boarding conditions and wellbeing support should be improved. RQ5 - There are some conflicts and compromises while students adapt to the school boarding environment. Significance This mixed methods research could provide a comprehensive insight into boarding schools from a range of perspectives. It fills the gap in the understanding of the inclusion of rural children in rural and suburban boarding schools in the Chinese context. This would give a comparison between rural and suburban boarding schools, particularly their efforts to include rural children in the boarding environment. In addition, this study has the potential to further contribute to the knowledge of inclusive education and inequalities.

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