| Abstract As the migrant population has become a prominent feature in China, there has been increased research attention on the migrant children who move to the cities with their parents. What is less known to the educators and policymakers are the children who are left behind in the countryside while their parents go away. How do these children deal with the long absence of their parents and what is the parent-child relationship like in such migrant families? This study intends to explore the world of left-behind children in China and examine how they negotiate with the various socialization issues they face in the process of growing-up without the presence of parents as traditional socialization agents. Based on in-depth, longitudinal interviews and observations with two “left-behind” children in Henan Province over the past 10-month period, this study found that alienation typically exists between the migrant parents and their left-behind children. With the long-time separation between parents and child, the left-behind children do not identify with their parents’ values, emotions, experiences and expectations that have obviously been influenced by the urban life. The lack of direct communication and contact between the parents and the child has serious impact on the left-behind child’s socialization, given the importance of family as a major socialization agent in the Chinese culture. This study also illustrates the different alienation mechanisms by comparing the different social contexts that the two left-behind children are situated in. |
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