The Socioeconomic Status Impact on Rural Area Students’ Education: An Interview Study

Abstract

As GDP per capital increases rapidly in contemporary China, the issue of educational equity is further highlighted. This study aimed to investigate how socioeconomic status impact education, specifically in rural areas with low socioeconomic status. Compared with developed areas such as many urban cities in China, the enrolment rate in rural areas is very low. As a result, solving the problem of education in rural areas could further solve the problem of educational equity. The level of economic development is the main factor which impedes the development of education in rural areas such as governmental funding, limited schools, limited school age children, and limited teacher forces. The data analysis found that socioeconomic status impacted their quality of education, their ways of thinking and behaving, their family education and thus overall impacting their academic trajectory in the long run.