To What Extent Do Migrant Children Affect Local Children in Urban China: A Study of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Classroom Peer Effects

Sammanfattning: Recognising the multitude of social barriers to equal educational opportunities faced by Chinese rural-to-urban migrant children, this paper examines the peer effects of migrant children on local children in urban public schools. Using the two-wave panel data from the China Education Panel Survey collected over the academic years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, we examine to what extent are urban local children's cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes affected by class proportions of rural-to-urban migrant children. With a final sample of 3,613 individuals, we employ an identification strategy that utilises class-level random assignment and school fixed effects to separate social effects from contextual and correlated effects. We find no significant peer effects on urban local children's cognitive outcomes measured by Chinese, mathematics, English and cognitive ability scores. Except for the positive peer effects on urban local children's confidence in their future, we find no significant peer effects on urban local children's non-cognitive outcomes.