This research addresses a critical yet under-examined subject within the sociology of education and internal migration: the lived experiences and identity formation of young women who grew up as children of rural-to-urban migrants in China’s distinctive ‘urban villages’ (chengzhongcun城中村). While the children of China’s estimated 300 million internal migrants have garnered significant scholarly attention (Luo, 2012; Dorfman, 2018), research often bifurcates into a discourse of ‘left-behind children’ in rural areas versus ‘migrant children’ facing integration barriers in cities (Li et al., 2025; Dong, 2018). This study identifies a significant empirical and theoretical gap concerning those who inhabit a unique socio-spatial niche: they are not ‘left-behind’, nor are they transient ‘migrants’ in the typical sense; they are socialised within the city, yet within enclaves marked by informality, stigma, and profound inequality. Urban villages, formed by the engulfing of former rural settlements by expanding metropolises, are dense, low-cost neighbourhoods housing millions of migrant families (Zhou, 2025; Lam, 2022). They are physical and symbolic frontiers where urban dreams and rural origins collide.

Focusing on female experiences introduces a vital gendered lens, as daughters often navigate compounded pressures from limited family resources, gendered expectations, and the imperative for educational success as a perceived sole pathway to mobility (Jacka, 2005; Goodburn Lau, 2015). The research is guided by three questions: 1) How do the spatial and social characteristics of urban villages shape the educational opportunities, identity construction, and emotional experiences of women raised within them? 2) What strategies do these women employ to pursue educational success and social mobility within constrained environments? 3) How do they negotiate and reconfigure their complex, hybrid identities during their transition to adulthood?

The theoretical framework synergistically integrates Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital. Sen’s approach shifts the evaluative focus from outcomes (e.g., test scores, income) to the expansion of individuals’ substantive freedoms and ‘capabilities’—the real opportunities to achieve valued ‘beings and doings’, such as being educated, enjoying social integration, and maintaining self-respect (Sen, 1999). It provides a normative lens for assessing equality of opportunity. Bourdieu’s conceptual toolkit (economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital, habitus, and field) offers a critical sociological apparatus to diagnose the structural roots that constrain these capabilities (Bourdieu, 1986). The spatial and social milieu of the urban village is analysed as a field with a specific distribution of capital, where families often possess limited economic capital, marginalised cultural capital (relative to urban mainstream norms), and thin local social networks. The ‘urban village’ label itself often carries negative symbolic capital (stigma) (Lam, 2022). This integrated ‘capital-capability-field’ framework allows us to analyse how structural inequalities in capital convertibility systematically limit the development of individuals’ capabilities, while also examining the agential, often burdensome strategies individuals deploy to accumulate capital (notably educational credentials) and expand their horizons (see also a model linking Bourdieu and Sen by “The Role of Outside-School Factors in Science Education”, 2016).

The European/international relevance of this study is multifaceted. It contributes to global debates on the intergenerational consequences of migration, educational inequalities in super-diverse cities, and the role of space in reproducing social class. It resonates with European research on the integration of second-generation immigrants in contexts of spatial segregation and offers a comparative perspective from the Global East on how rapid, state-driven urbanization creates unique marginal spaces and subjectivities. The study’s theoretical engagement with capability and capital provides a robust, transferable framework for analysing educational mobility at the intersection of space, gender, and class across different national contexts.

This qualitative study employs the Biographic-Narrative Interpretative Method (BNIM) (Wengraf, 2001) as its core methodological framework. BNIM is chosen for its depth and sensitivity in accessing the life-worlds of participants, treating the life story as a central means through which individuals construct meaning, identity, and coherence from their experiences over time. It is particularly suited to exploring the interplay between structural forces and personal agency across the life course ( Rosenthal, 2004). Data collection involves longitudinal, in-depth biographic-narrative interviews with 10 women (aged 22-35) who spent their formative childhood and adolescent years (minimum of 10 years) growing up in urban villages in major Chinese cities (e.g., Shenzhen, Guangzhou). Participants are purposively sampled to capture diversity in educational attainment, current occupation, and family migration history. Each participant undergoes a two-interview series: the first is a single-question, open-ended narrative interview inviting them to tell their life story; the second is a follow-up interview focusing on themes and chronologies emerging from the first, allowing for deeper exploration and clarification. The analysis follows a constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2014), informed by BNIM’s analytical principles. This involves a meticulous, iterative process. First, interview transcripts are analysed using initial and focused coding to identify key experiential categories (e.g., “spatial shame,” “educational hustling,” “identity camouflage”). Second, the analysis proceeds to theoretical coding, where these categories are constantly compared and related to the sensitising concepts of the theoretical framework (e.g., how experiences of “capital disparity” in school link to the development of specific “capabilities” or “emotional costs”). Memo-writing is used throughout to develop analytical ideas. The aim is not to test the theories rigidly but to use them as lenses to illuminate the data, allowing for a grounded, nuanced understanding of how structural constraints and capabilities are lived and navigated. The study adheres to strict ethical protocols, including informed consent, anonymisation (using pseudonyms), and secure data handling.

The analysis reveals three core findings on the educational mobility and identity negotiation of women from urban villages. First, the urban village is a site of capital scarcity that constrains key capabilities. Participants experienced economic precarity, gendered resource allocation, and the threat of being sent “back home,” undermining their capability for security. Spatial stigma and a cultural capital gap with urban peers eroded their capability for self-respect and social participation. Second, participants engaged in intense “educational hustling,” embracing meritocracy at high emotional cost. They pursued education as the only fair path, yet within an unequal field where merit often mirrored mainstream cultural capital. This required constant identity labour—hiding addresses, altering accents—to “pass.” Such effort protected educational chances but incurred anxiety, shame, and a fractured self, illustrating trade-offs between educational capability and psychological well-being. Third, these experiences produced “double otherness” and belonging dislocation. They felt like outsiders both in the city (“migrant kids”) and in ancestral rural areas. In adulthood, educational success enabled class mobility but not identity resolution. Many identify as “marginal middle-class,” navigating hybridity and enduring emotional ties to—yet distance from—their past. The study concludes that upward mobility through education is an ambivalent achievement: enabled by agency but structurally overdetermined, laden with emotional penalties, and often yielding a fragmented self. It challenges individualistic meritocratic narratives and calls for policies addressing spatial stigma, curricular biases, and psychosocial support for youth in such borderlands.

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