Li Miao
李淼

Field of Study

Years of Stay at HYI

Aug 2024 to May 2025

University Affiliation

As a sociologist of education, I seek to answer this key question: How do rural-origin youth make sense of the value of schooling and prospects of upward mobility in an increasingly stratified society? I adopt both qualitative and quantitative approaches to interrogate this question, putting sociological, anthropological, and educational theories in conversation. Starting with my dissertation, I have conducted two longitudinal studies: one on the education of children of rural migrant workers in metropolises (2011-2018) and another on rural youth in boarding schools (2017 to now). My interests coalesce around topics such as citizenship education, gratitude education, new media and education, and youth culture. My first monograph, Citizenship Education and Migrant Youth in China: Pathways to the Urban Underclass (Routledge, 2017), based on fieldwork in Beijing, delves into the educational experiences of migrant youth in both migrant and public schools. My second monograph, entitled Zouping Revisited: Governance, Internet, and Schooling in Rural China (in preparation), traces how Zouping youth and their parents articulate and legitimize educational desire today. My articles appear in The China Quarterly, Information, Communication & Society, Journal of Cultural Economy, Journal of Chinese Governance, Journal of Research on Technology in Education, and so forth 

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