The Pedagogy of Place in China's Migrant Community

Abstract

Purpose

This article examines the curriculum and pedagogy of place for migrant children in China and advocates the recognition of migrant families’ and communities’ knowledge as necessary, relevant, and impactful curriculum.

Design/Approach/Methods

This article is based on a longitudinal qualitative study conducted in various migrant settlements in Beijing. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with migrant parents, teachers, and community activists and participant observations in schools, community meetings, and other gatherings in the communities. Data were coded on themes related to place-based connection, attachment, and belonging and then analyzed.

Findings

Findings demonstrate that pedagogical practices can be developed to re-center the knowledge and experiences of Chinese migrant communities. This pedagogical work recognizes and reflects the undervalued and unrecognized knowledge of migrant communities while investigating the meaning of “place” for migrant children.

Originality/Value

This is the first study putting special emphasis on the discussion of what “place” means for migrants and what knowledge is worthwhile for their children in China. A key contribution of this article is that it documents the challenges and benefits of creating a place-based curriculum and pedagogy for migrant children as they construct a sense of belonging.

Introduction

The curriculum is not simply the content taught in schools; it reflects identities and experiences that are positioned in relation to different forms of socio-political power and ways of knowing (Apple, 2014; Schubert, 2009). This article examines the curriculum and pedagogy of place for migrant children in China and advocates the recognition of migrant families’ and communities’ knowledge as necessary, relevant, and impactful curriculum. Educational scholars in the U.S. have argued for advancing community-based funds of knowledge, especially the cultural wealth of diverse communities of color, in curricula and pedagogy (Asher, 2007; González et al., 2005; He et al., 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Yosso, 2005). While a culturally relevant pedagogical framework is important, the emphasis on culture does not fully capture the hierarchy of China's socio-geographical politics. East Asian educational scholars have advanced educational theories with an emphasis on place to address educational inequity in marginalized communities within East Asian contexts. What still needs to be further explored are the different ways in which the sense of belonging or place is conceptualized by rural migrants and their children in China and how this sense reflects the particular relationships between people and place as well as the connections among home, school, and community.

This article puts special emphasis on the discussion of what “place” means for migrants and what knowledge is worthwhile for their children. The key purpose of this study is to explore the challenges and rewards of creating a place-based curriculum and pedagogy for migrant children. This pedagogical work recognizes and reflects the undervalued and unrecognized knowledge of Chinese migrant communities while investigating the meaning of “place” for migrant children as they construct their sense of belonging. To do so, this article first provides a background to explore the possibilities of place-based pedagogy for migrant children in China and then discusses how the concept of place-based pedagogy has developed in the West, mostly in the U.S., and East Asian contexts. The literature review further demonstrates a similar focus on the relationships between place and people in both contexts but also reveals that place-based pedagogy with different characteristics has been conceptualized on East Asian sociocultural and epistemological foundations. After presenting my methodological approach, I shared three scenarios/stories from migrant communities, rather than a thematically organized dataset, to highlight the various hopes and aspirations of place-based pedagogy for migrant children. In the discussion on theorizing the pedagogy of place in China's migrant community, I further argue that the elements of place-based pedagogy, considered essential in the West, are not a comprehensive reference point in East Asian contexts. It is important to take an “inter-referencing perspective” (Chen, 2010) to establish priorities within East Asian societies. I conclude this article by proposing answers to critical questions such as what kind of curriculum is worthwhile for migrant children who are forming their sense of place and belonging and what pedagogical practices can be developed to re-center the knowledge and experiences of communities that have been placed in the periphery/margins of society.

Background: Exploring a pedagogy of place for migrant children in China

Compared with immigrants to other countries, rural-to-urban migrants in China are still Chinese and are not completely unfamiliar with mainstream culture. The dominant source of disparities come from discourses concerning people's places of origin, which have been impacted by the profound urban–rural divide. This divide in China, which was institutionalized by the household registration system (hukou), is also a core-versus-peripheral structure. The reform process initiated in the late 1970s and subsequent rural-to-urban migration, which produced a large rural migrant population in urban areas, brought about changes to the urban/rural dual structure (Zhang, 2001). However, the social system separating urban and rural Chinese people—the household registration system (hukou)—has prevented rural migrants from acquiring full citizenship in urban areas (Chan & Zhang, 1999). Because of this system, migrants cannot easily change their rural status, which limits their access to state-subsidized housing, healthcare, and other essential services in the city even after working and living there for decades (Zhang, 2001). Chinese cultural rules and social relationship structures (i.e., the core/periphery structure) still play a significant role in shaping migrants’ identities in-between rural and urban areas and in the recognition of their multifaceted ways of belonging.

The challenges of developing social and cultural belonging are particularly true for migrant children (Chen & Feng, 2013) ¹ . Migrant children share the same hukou (household registration) status as their parents. They are called migrant children because, like their migrant parents, their place of residence is different from that of their hukou. In cities without urban hukou, migrant children must cope with varying forms of disparities compared to their urban peers, such as limited access to public educational resources in the city (Chen & Feng, 2013; Yu, 2016; Yu & Crowley, 2020). They are perceived as belonging to neither rural nor urban areas (Xiong & Li, 2017).

Against this background, educators and community activists working with migrant children have created curricular and extracurricular activities to bring migrant children from different backgrounds together and provide them with educational opportunities, to develop a sense of place and belonging (Yu, 2023, 2024). These pedagogical and curricular activities in Chinese migrant communities focus on multiple aspects of learning and support students in developing positive identities in relation to the socio-political and geopolitical meanings of place. In contrast to what culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) posits, which is students’ ethnic and cultural identities, and does not necessarily extend deeply into the connections between place and people, place-based pedagogical work includes culture but emphasizes knowledge and memories about space and socio-geographic locations. To discuss how the theory and practice of place-based pedagogy—especially how they guide the local- and school-based curricular movements in East Asian societies—provide an analytical lens for understanding the demands of the Chinese migrant community and the values of such pedagogical work, the following section explores the development of place-based pedagogy literature in both Western and East Asian contexts.

Foundations and dimensions of place-based pedagogy in Western and East Asian contexts

Place-based education in Western contexts: Five dimensions and a critical pedagogy of place

Place-based education is an approach to curriculum development and pedagogy that directs students’ attention to local cultures, phenomena, and issues (Smith, 2002). Place-based education starts from specific attributes of place rather than seeking to standardize the experiences of students. Gruenewald (2003a) traces the philosophical origin and history of place-based education, highlighting “the need to elaborate both cultural and ecological analyses as place-based education is developed” (p. 623). He discusses five dimensions of the fundamental idea that “places are deeply pedagogical centers of experience and meaning making” (p. 636), including the perceptual, sociological, ideological, political, and ecological dimensions of place. In the perceptual dimension, students are capable of perceiving places and learning from direct life experiences; this ability can be hindered or nurtured by educational experiences. The sociological dimension of place highlights the complex relationships among place, identity, and culture. One important sociological perspective on place that underlies place-based education is to recognize that “people are place makers and places are a primary artifact of human culture” and that students “participate meaningfully in the process of place making, that is, in the process of shaping what our places will become” (p. 627). The ideological dimension reminds us that “geographical space, always inscribed with politics and ideologies, simultaneously reflects and reproduces social relationships of power and domination” (p. 628). The focal point is that place-based education should be connected to critical social and cultural analyses. This is also emphasized in the political dimension, as it emphasizes that “[e]ducational treatments of place must be attentive to the life of the margin,” as well as “identifying and learning from those diverse communities of resistance … to think and act in ways that counter social domination” (pp. 632–633). Finally, the ecological dimension of place situates educational engagement with places in the context of action and change and advocates for being responsive to social and ecological issues.

In the U.S. curriculum literature, students and teachers who engage in place-based pedagogy that emphasizes connection and participation, have examined their natural environments, studied community history, and addressed local issues through natural history inquiry, cultural journalism, and action research with families and others in the community (Gruenewald, 2003a). People frequently use place-based and community-based terms interchangeably. To disrupt the regimes of standardization and control driven by high-stakes testing, homogenized curricula, and intensified global competition, critical place-based education, or the “critical pedagogy of place” (Gruenewald, 2003b), seeks decolonization and reinhabitation. Reinhabitation means “identifying, affirming, conserving, and creating those forms of cultural knowledge that nurture and protect people and ecosystems” and “involves learning to live well socially and ecologically in places that have been disrupted and injured.” Decolonization emphasizes “learning to recognize disruption and injury and to address their causes” (Gruenewald, 2003b, p. 9). Without a place-based education, students may perceive their local geographical and cultural locations to be deficient. Critical place-based education does not deny local culture or shield children from social conflicts. Instead, when the curriculum and pedagogies are rooted in various forms of narratives situated within place, the material is relevant to children's and families’ lives and builds well-being and community life (Apple, 2014; McLaren, 2015; Sherfinski et al., 2022; Sherfinski, 2023).

Place-based education in East Asia: Rethinking belonging and marginalization

Although there are similarities in the focus of incorporating local contexts into education, there are differences in how place-based educational approaches unfold in Western and East Asian societies. As previously discussed, the critical pedagogy of place in Western contexts emphasize the importance of understanding the social and political dimensions of place and the ways in which power dynamics shape local communities. This approach encourages students to critically reflect on their social and cultural identities and develop a sense of responsibility toward their communities. This is often associated with social justice and environmental education. In contrast, place-based education in East Asian societies, as the following section explores, places greater emphasis on the cultural and historical significance of place. This approach highlights the importance of teaching students about the traditional values and practices of their local communities and often involves the use of local landmarks, festivals, and other cultural events in the curriculum. The goal of this approach is to promote a sense of cultural pride and identity among students and preserve traditional cultural practices and knowledge.

Educational scholars in East Asia have engaged in inquiries and dialogues about place-based education, both explicitly and implicitly, for a long time. Its roots can be traced to the turn of the previous century when East Asian societies promoted “乡土教育” (homeland, or native-place, or local education) as a means to carry forward the national spirit and pursue the reconstruction of subjectivity against Western colonialism and imperialism (Ching, 2003; Khoo, 2015; Shi & Zhou, 2019; Wei, 2002). As Wei (2002) points out, the value of native-place education is as follows:

The ultimate purpose of native-place education is to enable students to gain an empathic understanding, the understanding of the residents of the native-place through various activities in the past and present, to build connection to the place, and to carve the unique style and features of the place. It also allows students to continue to participate in and adapt to their own life in the native-place, and to truly realize, affirm, identify, care for, respect, and appreciate their own native-place. (p. 333)

Developing from its cultural and historical roots and learning from the decolonization and reinhabitation discourses in the critical pedagogy of place, contemporary place-based education in East Asia—with or without specifically naming the relevant curriculum and pedagogy as place-based, community-based, local-based, or region-based ² —engages students and their teachers with a sociocultural and ecological life through multidisciplinary and intergenerational learning. East Asian scholars document the rewards and challenges of place-based, interdisciplinary curriculum development and pedagogy in schools, focusing on teachers’ and community members’ roles in integrating natural resources, forestry culture, folk arts and music, and indigenous knowledge for the purpose of learning and protecting the communities (Chen et al., 2012), as well as “knowledge-ties between youth and rural sustainability” (Chang & Kuo, 2021).

Hung (2012, 2015), and others (Chang & Kuo, 2021; Chen et al., 2012; Wei, 2002) have highlighted the pursuit of settledness in place-based education through their work. Key concepts, such as “安顿、安居” (live in peace and contentment) and “安身立命” (settle down and continue with one's pursuit), which are so important to human development in the Eastern philosophy and value system, are connected to the purpose of place-based education (Hung, 2015). In addition to the questions of “What educational forms promote care for places? What does it take to conserve, restore, and create ways of being that serve people and places? What does it take to transform ways of being that harm people and places?” (Gruenewald & Smith, 2008, p. xix), Hung (2012) also raises the question of “What kind of place do we want to live in peacefully and contentedly and pass on to future generations?” (p. 62). This question echoes the message in a famous Chinese proverb, “此心安处是吾乡” (The place where my heart settles is where I find my home), which reveals the significance of actively constructing settledness or belonging, while developing connections to place in the East Asian articulation of place-based education. Note that this place might not necessarily be one's initial native geographical location. The emphasis on settling down is not a goal but a process; what is more important is finding a sense of belonging in the process of seeking settlement.

Another critical aspect of place-based education in East Asia is the marginalization of ruralness. As mentioned earlier, rural society has been on the periphery, both historically and contemporarily. With a large number of younger generations migrating and leaving, the population in rural regions has decreased dramatically, land is not cultivated properly or has been abandoned, and regional traditions and collective memories have been forgotten or neglected. Place-based pedagogy in many East Asian societies pay more attention to rediscovering geographical and sociocultural knowledge and reflecting on the identity of the rural society itself. For example, Japanese scholars and educators bring the peripheral rural place back into the core knowledge production process while embracing environmental, socio-political, and economic sustainability. Place-based pedagogy in rural Japan focuses on issues such as environmental disasters, indigenous cultural conservation, and rural community revitalization, which are carried out either through school-based formal education or educational programs generated by community members and/or non-profit organizations (Singer et al., 2017). For instance, starting in the 1980s, the Mori wa Umi no Koibito environmental movement—translated poetically by Mochizuki and Hatakeyama (2017) as “The sea is longing for the forest, the forest is longing for the sea” (p. 265)—combines reforestation and fishing activities by fishermen, raising awareness of the intricate links between the ocean and forests and experiential environmental learning for children. In recognizing the importance of place with regard to sustainability in Japan, Takano (2017) presented a place-based educational project, the Tappo Minami Uonuma School of Life and the Environment, that uses the whole of the rural region as a mutual learning space for the local residents and children as well as visitors who participate in its place-based programs. The project is built upon and enhances organic relationships within the community and the meaning of place in rural Japan.

Such a focus on actively constructing belonging and reflecting on the marginalization of rurality has also guided pedagogical practices in other East Asian societies, including Korea and China. The current English-language literature on place-based education in Korea emphasizes teaching students the strength of localization, collaboration, flexibility, and adaptivity, especially in the context of multicultural Korea, to confront the “deep-rooted xenophobia prevalent in Korean society” (Shen, 2019, p. 53) and promote a “sense of place (SOP) in their community” (Kim et al., 2020, p. 401). Place-based geographic curriculum translates abstract multicultural concepts into lessons and illustrations, with examples of students’ local surroundings. This curriculum aims to support students in recognizing the importance of Korea's underrecognized diversity from both local and historical perspectives (Shen, 2019). A community-based socio-scientific issues program draws on community organizations and resources to teach students about issues that they encounter in their community and to provide students with opportunities to meet and communicate with local experts and residents to solve community issues. In identifying and taking action to solve local community problems, students develop a stronger sense of place, including attachment, dependence, and identity (Kim et al., 2020).

The Chinese national curriculum reform in the early 2000s decentralized textbook production, allowing local provinces and regions to produce their own curricula and textbooks. This policy change provided opportunities for the redevelopment of place-based education (Khoo, 2015; Shi & Zhou, 2019). The official place-based curriculum in Chinese schools aims to concretize local culture and encourage children and youth to love their local native place, especially as it pertains to rural consciousness (Ching, 2003). Through the dissemination of local knowledge and culture, the localized or native-place curriculum aims to cultivate students’ native-place awareness and affection as well as a deeper understanding of local areas to further develop their self-identity and cultural self-confidence (Shi, 2001; Shi & Zhou, 2019).

Chinese schools conduct various forms of place-based education, including school-based, natural, ecological, and rural education, with a focus on cultural inheritance. However, rural schools often face challenges in implementing place-based curricula relevant to the local contexts of their students. This is partly due to the fact that the national curriculum in China is highly standardized and emphasizes urbanization and modernization, which may not reflect the experiences and realities of rural students. Furthermore, there is a longstanding tradition in China that views urban areas as more advanced and desirable than rural regions. This attitude can lead to a devaluation of rural cultures and traditions and a neglect of local knowledge in the educational system. As a result, many rural schools in China may have limited resources or sustained support to develop a curriculum grounded in local contexts. Rural students may be taught with materials and methods that are more suited to urban environments and may not have opportunities to learn about the natural environment, traditional practices, or the local history and culture unique to their rural communities. Recently, efforts have been made to promote place-based education in the rural areas of China. Some schools have begun to incorporate local cultural traditions and environmental knowledge into their curricula, and there is a growing recognition of the importance of valuing and preserving rural culture and traditions. Nonetheless, much work remains to be done to ensure that rural students in China have access to education truly relevant to local contexts and experiences.

This is also the case for migrant children. For migrant children, developing a sense of belonging is an unsettled process. Not only do they have multiple affiliations with different places that do not allow them to feel settled, but the perpetual periphery of rural places and culture also makes their sense of place imbalanced. Thus, place-based pedagogical work in migrant communities aims to support migrant children as they examine and make sense of belonging and place in a more holistic way. Their place can be affiliated with the city, connected to their rural place of origin, or, more specifically, to one or multiple migrant settlement(s) they have lived in. However, this important pedagogical work is conducted through an unofficial curriculum. With limited educational and social resources, teachers who worked with migrant children have mobilized their own experiences and those of their children as well as resources from families and the community.

To date, very little research on the education of migrant children in China has focused on pedagogy, especially with respect to the construction of belonging through the recognition of their own local culture and knowledge (Yiu & Yu, 2022). Only a few studies have examined the processes, problems, and possibilities of designated schools for migrant children (e.g., Kwong, 2004; Woronov, 2004; Yu, 2018, 2021). Existing studies on migrant children's education in China tend to focus on the children's assimilation experiences or policy-related issues regarding school access for migrant children (e.g., Dong, 2010, 2011; Lu & Zhou, 2013; Wang, 2008; Zhou & Wang, 2016), paying less attention to curriculum development and pedagogical activities that reflect students’ and families’ experiences in migrant communities. As mentioned above, community-based educators have been working with migrant children to provide them with educational opportunities to develop a sense of place and belonging. This article explores such efforts to construct place-based knowledge for migrant children while seeking to frame their experiences of place-based curriculum development and community engagement from a grounded East Asian perspective. By giving migrant children opportunities to explore and ask questions about what place is for them and how they connect to one or more places, educators and community activists aim to help them build their sense of belonging. This article thus documents the possibility of a pedagogy of place for migrant children that includes not only formal curricula and pedagogy in school but also social and pedagogical activities outside the school.

Methodological approach

This article is based on a longitudinal qualitative study conducted in Beijing ³ . To document the development of community efforts to educate migrant children, I visited various migrant settlements in the city and focused on five communities across six districts. These migrant communities have changed over time, from small enclaves based on migrants’ places of origin to larger migrant settlement urban villages (chengzhongcun, 城中村) that are the home to migrants from different regions of China. Some schools for migrant children within these communities were closed down, while others were converted into community service centers that provide more diverse services for migrant children's education and child development. I initially conducted a 14-month ethnographic study in these migrant communities from 2010 to 2011 and then followed up with the participants—some from the initial study and others additionally recruited—for extended interviews and multiple community revisits from 2016 to 2018. As a former teacher who worked in different schools in migrant communities, I relied on my connection to this place and my relationships with the people here; through the networks of my former colleagues and former students’ parents, to reach out to and recruit participants. In addition, this relationship helped form a strong sense of trust among us during our conversations and interactions throughout the study.

I conducted multiple in-depth interviews in the form of focal groups and individual interviews with migrant teachers and parents at schools, community activity centers, public markets, and libraries. I also conducted participant observations in schools, community meetings, and other community gatherings, such as public performances and celebratory events. In addition to working with migrant parents and teachers, I interviewed and observed the work of community activists who facilitated different governmental or non-governmental organizations that established various educational programs for migrant children in these communities.

When organizing the data for this article, the social and pedagogical work of teachers, parents, and community members was shared in the form of summaries of their experiences. I coded the transcriptions of interviews, observation notes, and photos, as well as my field journals, for patterns of place-based social and pedagogical activities and organized them in relation to the theoretical framework. Since this article is informed by a theoretical framework grounded in place-based education, I coded the data for themes around place- and community-based connections, attachment, and belonging in relation to the development of schools for migrant children and activities both inside and outside of school.

Place and belonging in migrant communities

The development of a place-based curriculum and pedagogy, both in schools for migrant children and in community-run education programs, aims to address critical questions concerning what constitutes worthwhile education for migrant children. After years of development, as well as being pushed further out from previously scattered areas that were once closer to the city center, many migrant communities are no longer home only to people from one place of origin, such as “Zhejiang cun” or “Henan cun” (Liang, 2013; Zhang, 2001). Instead, people from different regions and working in different occupations live jointly in the same migrant communities. Consequently, schools for migrant children have more diverse teacher and student populations in terms of place of origin and family background. Often, the official curriculum in these schools is the same as that in textbooks used in Beijing's public schools. These textbooks are oriented toward urban students and have been criticized for their urban focus. Migrant students are not familiar with the examples or illustrations presented in the textbooks and do not see their own places within the textbooks.

Working inside migrant communities with increasing diversity, some migrant school teachers have started organizing various activities to bring personal, family, and community experiences into the school curriculum. To center the efforts and experiences of these migrant teachers and children, instead of presenting the so-called “data” through a thematic organization, I focus on three stories of how place-based pedagogy was redefined and emphasized inside migrant communities. Rather than treating their lack of a sense of belonging to a singular native place as a disadvantage, the pedagogy of place showcased in these three stories highlights the knowledge, locations, and memories pertaining to migrant children's multiple belongings and the unsettledness that they have learned and converted into advantages.

Migrant family knowledge book

In a 6th-grade Chinese language arts class in one school for migrant children, the teacher found her students facing issues with the essay in the textbook about the old Lunar New Year traditions of local Beijing residents, even though it was beautifully written by a famous author. Students had difficulty understanding certain phrases, argued over the specific dates and ways to celebrate certain rituals during the month-long Lunar New Year celebration, and felt lost in all the places named in the essay because they had never visited or heard of them. Alongside the teacher, they decided to add information to the essay. They realized that Lunar New Year celebrations are vastly different in different regions of China, but also that they knew very little about Beijing, the city where most of them had grown up. The one-class lesson was expanded to a week-long unit. Students went home to interview their parents and neighbors about different Lunar New Year traditions in different places, including what people eat, when they perform certain rituals, proverbs about Lunar New Year traditions in different dialects, and so on. They also used online map tools to search and locate all the places mentioned in the essay and mark them with creative symbols on a wall-sized printed map of Beijing; four students volunteered to take an extra step to look up bus and subway routes to get there from their school and had the teacher promise them a class field trip later. The list of additions to the essay became increasingly longer throughout the Chinese language arts classes that week. By the end of the unit, the teacher had typed all the items on the list and had the principal print the list out in her office. The final product was 42 pages long and was their first class-written textbook. This self-made textbook gave them considerable material to discuss and was the most-read book among the 6th graders and teachers in the entire school. In this book, one can find geographical knowledge, plant and animal knowledge, language and sociocultural knowledge, meteorological knowledge, and agricultural knowledge from various regions, some of which had been passed down only through oral folklore. The arrangement of this knowledge was not determined by curriculum experts and scholars in the general sense but was woven together by local people who moved through different places—in this case, migrant children and their families.

Last class in the woods

According to the current education laws and regulations in China, schools for migrant children are not “properly registered” at the local education bureaus; thus, migrant students attending these schools cannot receive their National Student Identification (xueji) number (Chen et al., 2017). Although some cities have gradually relaxed the requirements for migrant students to enroll in public middle and high schools, it is almost impossible for migrant students who attend migrant children schools to participate in local standardized tests, such as the entrance exam for high school (zhongkao), especially in major cities like Beijing. Many migrant children have to leave their parents in the city and return to their place of hukou to attend middle and high schools. Thus, most migrant children schools in the city offer kindergarten through grades five or six. For migrant students, the migrant community is where their parents are; thus, it is the place of their home; in contrast, the place of their hukou is a strange place that is unfamiliar to them but that they are required to “return to.”

A group of 5th-grade students and their teacher shared their “last class” with me before 17 out of 26 of them left Beijing to continue their middle school education. They gathered in the woods behind the school. There was no worksheet required that day, but everyone held their notebooks and asked one another to sign their names and leave messages for each other. The teacher started the class by sharing his own story of growing up in a northern rural village not far from Beijing and all the trees and plants he could name in his village. His favorite place was the woods. The trees in those woods reminded him of home. Upon hearing his words, some students asked if he could still name some of the trees in the woods, which started their tree and plant identification mini-inquiries. Twenty-six children scattered throughout the woods; laughter and occasional screams came from different locations. Surprisingly, the same trees and plants can have different names in different regions, similar to some common animals. The children's laughter rang out when they thought a name was silly in a different dialect, and they screamed when a wooly caterpillar crawled out from under a leaf.

After re-grouping, one student modified the title of a pop song to describe the feeling of walking through the woods as “my hand passing through your green leaves.” Nodding with a smile, the teacher then continued to share a story of how, when he first came to the city, every morning, he would walk from his dormitory to the school, passing a breakfast stand to pick up two pancakes, then coming to the woods to eat his breakfast; he then went to school to start his day. He asked students what their favorite places were in the community and in the city of Beijing. Some began by saying that it was the woods. One boy said that he loved playing in the woods with his friends when it was snowy. They rode sleds and created snowmen. Others echoed this idea, saying that the autumn in the woods was also beautiful. The smell of falling leaves mixed with the smell of roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts from food stands in the market is the smell of autumn in the community.

A girl said that her favorite place was the big kitchen in the courtyard that her family rented and shared with five other families. She said she would miss all the dishes cooked there because the families were from different regions of China, and in that kitchen, she had eaten all kinds of food. Another girl said that she liked going to the community activity center with her mother after dinner on weekends. She would play with her friends while watching her mother and her friends’ mothers perform a square dance. Another boy jumped up and shared a long list of his favorite places: the school, especially the murals on the outside wall of the classroom buildings that they had painted with their teachers and parents; the noodle shop with the best beef noodles; these woods, throughout all seasons; and subway Line 13, because it goes above the city (Line 13 is a light rail) and his father was part of the team who built it even before he was born. More and more students shared their favorite places; some are famous destinations in the city of Beijing, such as the Forbidden City, but most of the places they named were within the migrant community.

The final class ended with the teacher asking the students to come up with ways to preserve their memories of their community. Several responded that they could do this by taking photos and videos, the boy who adapted the pop song's title mentioned writing a song, and some added poems and drawings. One girl said that if she could make a film about her memory, she would also record every classmate's name because everyone was in this place with her.

Drama workshop

The pedagogy of place for migrant children also exists outside school. For migrant children, there are places such as campus radio stations and student newspapers at school as well as book clubs and drama programs in the community to support them in sharing their experiences and telling their own stories. Dynamic extracurricular activities organized by educators in community-based organizations are brought into the community as a whole to serve as pedagogical resources for migrant children. These programs were designed to encourage migrant students to use various ways of telling their own stories. One such program is a weekly drama workshop led by volunteers in a community-based organization and held in a community activity center. Volunteers in this program worked with migrant children to incorporate scenes with which they were most familiar in the writing of playscripts, including scenes in community and family settings. They discussed and created different plays as a group and learned from each other's stories and their recollections of different places where they once lived. They shared how these recollections changed over time and how they were both mythical and real.

The workshops gradually shifted from adult-led lessons to lessons relying on students’ own experiences. These children learned to be facilitators, organizers, and good performers in each drama workshop. The plays not only reflected migrant children's lives but also allowed them to learn to participate in drama performances in the most spontaneous and natural way. Children were also encouraged to think in new ways to express themselves and participate in the performances. The more active they were in the workshops, the more reflective they were when facing difficult life situations. Migrant children were encouraged to use drama performance opportunities to determine how to face these challenges and discuss difficult issues from their own perspectives. Through the workshop, through different plays, from performing plays at the beginning to participating in the writing of the stories later, migrant children were constantly rethinking the label of “migrant children.” Many discussions about migrants occurred during the rehearsals. Their discussions included questions such as: Did they agree with this label of “migrant”? Did this matter? Can they be a migrant but also someone who is bonded to a place such as Henan, Shandong, Anhui, or Beijing? They did not have one common answer to these questions, but they did use their spontaneous performances in these plays to portray who they were and record their stories of growing up in different places.

The mainstream discourse has created a stereotype about migrant children: They are underachievers and perform poorly on standardized tests; they only receive low-quality education in poorly equipped migrant children schools; and they are like their migrant parents, who left their native place. Thus, they have cut off their connections to their culture and rural roots and lost their past and memories of the place. However, through the place-based school curriculum and extracurricular activities, migrant children were able to show their true talents and produce powerful works in writing, singing, painting, art, and other forms of creative expression.

Discussion and conclusion

In place-based pedagogy literature, discussions center on the concept of place. However, previous research on China's local curriculum or place-based learning continues to reflect the division between urban and rural areas and excludes the representation of migrant communities. What does place mean to migrant children? Their place transcends urban and rural geographical locations and cuts across the binary opposition between them. The review of place-based pedagogy in other East Asian societies provides a helpful “inter-referencing perspective” (Chen, 2010) to reflect on how a sense of belonging is constructed and how the core/periphery structure can be resisted in relation to place. Such a reflection is key to understanding the urban–rural divide and geopolitics of the core versus the periphery as well as the ways in which individuals build relationships with place. Thus, this article pays particular attention to how places are defined for migrant children in China with regard to how they construct a sense of belonging and their social and cultural identities with affiliations to different places.

East Asian societies attach great importance to setting roots in one's native place or homeland (Fei, 1992), but the definition of native-place or homeland, especially its historical implications for ruralness, has undergone drastic changes with the emergence of the labor movement and migration. However, migration does not automatically bring about changes in the peripheral status of rural localities. Rural knowledge, culture, and the geographic environment are pushed into a more vulnerable position. There is an urgent need to preserve cultures and lifestyles that are close to natural environments as well as to introduce a comprehensive way to understand traditions in rural regions. Place-based pedagogy in East Asian and Western contexts highlights intergenerational knowledge and cultural preservation. Recentering rural society and reflecting on the marginality of ruralness, as educators in East Asian societies have focused on, allows children to realize that rural knowledge is not limited to agricultural production; rural knowledge also represents the cultural heritage and wisdom of the previous generations. Through the example of creating their own class book, place-based pedagogy for migrant children brings in sociocultural knowledge about both rural and urban places and provides them with opportunities to build cultural confidence and place-based identities through the learning of both places.

In addition to geographical, historical, and cultural representations, place reflects the social hierarchy, interpersonal relationships, and one's perspective of the self. Migration redefines the meaning of place, but the meaning of place for migrant children may not be the same as that for their parents. In the pedagogy of place for migrant children, the central focus is on how the knowledge and identities of migrant parents interact with urban social and political environments that affect migrant children in forming their own identities and understanding of place. Migrant children often find themselves seeking cultural self-confidence and a sense of spatial belonging, barely integrating into rural ways of living while being excluded from the urban areas where they live because of institutional barriers (such as hukou). Place-based pedagogy emphasizes the relationship between people and place, highlighting sustainable ways to build connections in the process of individual and societal development. In the case of educating migrant children, the emphasis is on how to build sustainable relationships with the surrounding environment to increase their confidence and cultivate positive self-awareness, even if these are fluid and changing environments. As the last lesson unfolded in the woods of a migrant community, migrant children recognized that, rather than not belonging to rural or urban areas, they actually have access to both places to build memories and develop connections.

A third layer of the significance of the pedagogy of place for migrant children is allowing them to express and put on the center stage—quite literally—their own interpretation of place and people. The stories that migrant children wrote about in the drama workshop and other place-based curricular and extracurricular activities reflected their own life experiences between places. In addition to learning about the past and emphasizing what children can inherit from their places, the pedagogy of place encourages migrant children to look into the future to tell their own stories, construct their own identities, re-examine their relationships, and create connections with different places. I have been using place-based pedagogy and pedagogy of place interchangeably throughout this article, but here, I return to the title, pedagogy of place. This is because “place” became a verb, as the pedagogy of place in migrant communities is also a pedagogy of giving voice to both people and place, including multiple generations and multiple places.

Examining the challenges and possibilities of pedagogy of place for migrant children in China provides valuable insights into how local contexts can be incorporated into education in various cultural contexts. By analyzing the strategies used by educators in China's migrant communities to develop place-based curricula and extracurricular activities relevant to migrant students, one can identify commonalities and differences in approaches to place-based pedagogy across different cultures. Furthermore, a more nuanced understanding of the factors that influence these approaches helps to challenge and expand one's assumptions about what constitutes a “place” and how it is related to education. While the concept of place is often associated with rural or natural environments in Western literature, East Asian societies such as China, as in this study, focus on a place-based pedagogy that also involves urban spaces, historical sites, and cultural events. By exploring and “inter-referencing” (Chen, 2010) how place is conceptualized and integrated into education in different cultural contexts, one can better understand the diverse ways in which people relate to and learn from their environments as well as develop a more comprehensive, responsive, relevant, and inclusive framework for understanding and practicing a pedagogy of place.