An experimental study of the effect of intergroup contact on attitudes in urban China

A large body of literature attests to the growing social divide between urban residents and rural–urban migrants in China’s cities. This study uses a randomised experiment to test the effect ofintergroup contact on attitudes between a group of urban adolescents and a group of rural–urbanmigrant adolescents. Results showed that intergroup contact in the form of a fun and cooperativepuzzle task significantly reduced negative attitudes toward the other group. Implications fordesegregated schooling and their broader societal implications in China are discussed.

Height, weight and well-being for rural, urban and migrant workers in China

In general, the happiness literature has paid little attention to the relationship between physical appearance and well-being. In this paper, we examine the link between weight, height and well-being for three distinct samples in China given that attractiveness effects likely vary greatly across sociocultural contexts. As China has recently undergone rapid economic transformation in the urban areas, this empirical exercise is particularly interesting because it can highlight how changing social norms have affected the relationship between physical appearance and subjective well-being. For the rural and migrant samples, we find that for both men and women, big and tall individuals have higher levels of well-being. This is consistent with the notion that the strong are better off when more labor intensive work is the norm. For the urban sample and for urban males in particular, no well-being penalty is found for being obese, unlike previous results based on Western samples. It is very likely that the unique Chinese cultural practice of network building banquets and feasting is behind this finding.

Politics, religion and morals: the symbolism of public schooling for the urban middle-class identity

Research points to sections of the middle-class repopulating the ‘ordinary’ urban public school and whilst there are key differences in how they are navigating public school choices, from ‘seeking a critical mass’ (Posey-Maddox, Kimelberg, and Cucchiara 2014) to resisting traditional methods of choice and going ‘against-the-grain’ (Reay, Crozier, and James 2013), or collectively campaigning for a brand new public school, the urban middle-class are developing contemporary methods to challenge the existing ways of thinking about middle-class choice. Drawing on this literature, this paper explores the symbolism of public schooling for relatively affluent choosers in the city of Melbourne, Australia. The positioning of public schooling as essentially secular and liberal indicates how the public school is valorised within the contemporary market place. Within a market that tends to under-sell the public school, the perceived lack of organized religion and progressivism may be the unique selling point for the cosmopolitan, globalized consumer.