Persisting or dropping out: a grounded theory of school-to-work transitions of young migrants in China

Thesis

This doctoral thesis inductively develops a grounded theory of school-to-work transitions of young rural-to-urban internal migrants in China. It seeks to explain why some young people persist, whereas others drop off their pathways beyond compulsory education. It draws on intensive interviews with young migrants (n = 35) and their parents (n = 15) conducted during 11 months of fieldwork in an outskirt district of Shanghai. The scope of this thesis covers school-to-work transitions of young people, particularly those in restrictive institutional and social contexts.

It finds that an empirically grounded, multidimensional concept, ‘interest-environment fit’, and its link to motivation explain persistence and dropping out on all three major pathways beyond middle school: the academic, the vocational school and the work track. The underlying mechanism suggests that finding a good interest-environment fit around middle school graduation leads young people to subjectively link their interests to their pathway, achieve a higher level of motivation and persist, while the reverse holds for those who do not achieve a good fit. The concept of interest-environment fit explicitly incorporates social class and institutional restrictions, underscoring the sociological perspective taken in this thesis. Moreover, the analysis highlights that the decision-making phase in middle school is crucial for understanding young people’s trajectories beyond middle school graduation.

The thesis adds to the theoretical literature on dropping out and persisting in the sociology of education and work by (1) conceptually integrating the decision-making process about pathways in middle school, (2) analysing all three main pathways beyond middle school within one comprehensive theoretical framework that highlights important parallels, and (3) grounding the theory in a Chinese context. Moreover, through its application of grounded theory methodology, this study emphasises the benefits and potential of employing an approach that prioritises data over pre-existing theoretical knowledge.

Authors: Lohove, L

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Interest-environment fit; School-to-work transition; Grounded Theory; Vocational school; China; Drop out; Decision-making; Work-bound youth; Shanghai; Persistence; Migrant youth
• Subjects: Dropouts; Persistence; School-to-work transitionDropouts; Sociology; Rural-urban migration; Migration, Internal; Education; Youth; Qualitative research; Vocational education; East Asia; Grounded theory