Hannum Emily, Kong Peggy, Zhang Yuping
University of Pennsylvania, Department of Sociology and Population Studies Center, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6299, United States.
Int J Educ Dev. 2009 Sep 1;29(5):474-486. doi: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2009.04.007.
In this paper, we investigate the gender gap in education in rural northwest China. We first discuss parental perceptions of abilities and appropriate roles for girls and boys; parental concerns about old-age support; and parental perceptions of different labor market outcomes for girls' and boys' education. We then investigate gender disparities in investments in children, children's performance at school, and children's subsequent attainment. We analyze a survey of 9-12-year-old children and their families conducted in rural Gansu Province in the year 2000, along with follow-up information about subsequent educational attainment collected 7 years later. We complement our main analysis with two illustrative case studies of rural families drawn from 11 months of fieldwork conducted in rural Gansu between 2003 and 2005 by the second author.In 2000, most mothers expressed egalitarian views about girls' and boys' rights and abilities, in the abstract. However, the vast majority of mothers still expected to rely on sons for old-age support, and nearly one in five mothers interviewed agreed with the traditional saying, "Sending girls to school is useless since they will get married and leave home." Compared to boys, girls faced somewhat lower (though still very high) maternal educational expectations and a greater likelihood of being called on for household chores than boys. However, there was little evidence of a gender gap in economic investments in education. Girls rivaled or outperformed boys in academic performance and engagement. Seven years later, boys had attained just about a third of a year more schooling than girls-a quite modest advantage that could not be fully explained by early parental attitudes and investments, or student performance or engagement. Fieldwork confirmed that parents of sons and daughters tended to have high aspirations for their children. Parents sometimes viewed boys as having greater aptitude, but tended to view girls as having more dedication-an attribute parents perceived as being critical for educational success. Findings suggest that at least in Gansu, rural parental educational attitudes and practices toward boys and girls are more complicated and less uniformly negative for girls than commonly portrayed.
在本文中，我们研究了中国西北农村地区教育中的性别差距。我们首先讨论了父母对男孩和女孩能力及适当角色的看法；父母对养老支持的担忧；以及父母对女孩和男孩教育在不同劳动力市场结果方面的看法。然后，我们调查了在子女投资、子女在校表现以及子女后续学业成就方面的性别差异。我们分析了2000年在甘肃省农村地区对9至12岁儿童及其家庭进行的一项调查，以及7年后收集的有关后续学业成就的跟踪信息。我们通过第二作者在2003年至2005年期间于甘肃农村进行的11个月实地调查中选取的两个农村家庭的说明性案例研究，对我们的主要分析进行补充。2000年时，大多数母亲从抽象层面表达了对女孩和男孩权利及能力的平等主义观点。然而，绝大多数母亲仍然期望依靠儿子养老，并且近五分之一接受采访的母亲认同传统说法：“送女孩上学没用，因为她们将来会结婚离开家。”与男孩相比，女孩面临的母亲教育期望略低（尽管仍然很高），并且比男孩更有可能被要求做家务。然而，几乎没有证据表明在教育的经济投资方面存在性别差距。女孩在学业成绩和参与度方面与男孩相当或超过男孩。七年后，男孩的受教育年限仅比女孩多大约三分之一年——这是一个相当小的优势，无法完全由早期父母的态度和投资、学生表现或参与度来解释。实地调查证实，有儿子和女儿的父母往往对自己的孩子抱有很高的期望。父母有时认为男孩更有天赋，但往往认为女孩更有奉献精神——父母认为这一特质对教育成功至关重要。研究结果表明，至少在甘肃，农村父母对男孩和女孩的教育态度及做法更为复杂，对女孩的负面看法也不像通常所描述的那样一致。
