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It is a tough question for rural migrant workers whether to take their children with them while migrating around big cites or leave them at home.Considering the unstable life as well as the expensive cost of living in cities，many parents prefer leaving children behind with grandparents in rural areas.On the one hand，parents can focus on making money without being distracted by childcare.On the other hand，children left behind can help to share house chores and do farm work for aging grandparents.However，there are also considerable open-minded parents who take children to big cities at any cost，with a hope to broaden their world views and prepare them for a better future.
Education is a common question faced by both children left behind and staying with migrant parents.In this process，cultural discontinuity and cultural transmission display themselves to different degrees in both groups.In a broad sense，China is a country with Confucius heritage，so the majority of Chinese share common root.Major cities，especially those along eastern coast，are the frontier where globalization exerts great influence.In the long run，free market shakes and dilutes Confucius culture in those places.
Confucius features are better preserved in rural areas that are relatively enclosed.Children left behind risk having more conflict when they leave traditional family and enter formal education.Normally，leftover children are taken care of by aging grandparents whose mindsets might be stereotyped and stubborn to old tradition.Cultural continuity is maintained by skip-generation transmission.Family，a significant folk group in Confucius culture，works to tie children firmly to house chores.According to Sims and Stephens （2005），a folk group may be established because of necessity，obligation or circumstances； proximity； regular interaction； or shared interests or skills.Here in Confucius families，obligation is important bonds except for blood relationship.Familysm，which gives family every privilege，requires family members to divide labor and maximize family benefit，though it might be at the cost of personal benefit.In rural areas where lands are the major source of income，the main display of familysm is to take care of family and make lands harvest.Thus，it is common to see that little girls holding their infant sisters or brothers while cooking for the whole family，and little boys tilling lands in the countryside.Paternalism，emphasizing a strong head of family and strict hierarchy，leads leftover children to share more burden of house chore and farm work for grandparents.There is little informal initiation nowadays in Confucius culture，which marks new status or role of young people in a family.The compression，which means young people display a large amount cultural-related behavior，comes when they are old enough to help house chores and farm work.Except for household responsibility，rural children have free life style.They have little access to toys because of poverty or limited resources，so most of time they depend on themselves for fun.Their conditions are similar to Mistassini Cree children out of school.They are self-reliant，and the interpersonal relations are largely in close kinship （Sindell，1997）.Also，they are not aggressive.It is because Confucius culture requires high moral ethos to maintain social harmony，and for thousands of years Chinese peasants have been self-sufficient so they pay little attention to other people.Discontinuity，which means the management of the young people’s learning from a supportive and easy condition to a harsh and difficult one，begins when they enter school （Spindler，1997）.Schools in rural China can hardly compare with formal education because of the poor source of teachers，teaching materials，and basic infrastructures.Those schools，following only the basic structure of formal urban education，work to enlighten rural children.Even so，rural children need considerable efforts to adapt.Rules and regulations require rural children to make no noise and seat uprightly in classroom.Moreover，they face fierce competition in schools that goes against their unaggressive nature. In comparison，children migrating with parents and attend urban public school confront less discontinuity in transition from family to school.On the one hand，they are more likely to live in nuclear families，which means they do not have to take care of extended families.On the other hand，their parents，though still of low social economic status，have been immersed in urban life for some time，and gradually embrace new mindset.To some degree，they are similar with their urban counterparts except some habits in life.Since parents’ attention is not on harvest of lands any more，responsibility for family displays itself in the form of acquiring upward social mobility in cities.According to segmented assimilation perspective （Portes and Zhou，1993），children might experience upward assimilation because of their parents’ high social economic status or other favorable condition； also，they have downward assimilation because of poor resource of their migrant parents.However，Kasinitz et al.（2002） state that the possibility of downward assimilation is very little.Alba and Nee （2003） point out “most of the contemporary second generation would experience gradually increasing social integration”.We can see dominant culture makes recruitment by education.First，public urban education integrates rural students into a cultural system in general，so that they become urban residents.And then they are recruited to specific social status according to their future social economic status.Migrant group is still minority in cities.They bear their own rural values when they are trying to adapt to the mainstream dominant culture that is led by urban mindset.I will use the conclusion of Gibson （1997） to see why migrant children meet fewer obstacles when they are integrated in school.First of all，migrant parents encourage education because they see the payoff of attending school，which is crucial for the nuclear family to change social economic status in the future.Secondly，although rural migrant workers are from less developed areas，they，together with urban residents，are all Chinese with the same roots.Thus，the resistance toward cultural nuance is not that great.In other words，difference between rural and urban mindset is only a matter of domestic conflict，involving little aggression and invasion.
Rural migrant workers in China form a vulnerable group.They have to leave where they were born and doing less skilled work with slender pay.In order to gradually acquire upward social mobility，it is significant to think about whether it is good for their children to be left behind with grandparents or stay with them in big cities.Though leftover children can have education in rural area，they might meet more cultural discontinuity and conflict in transitional period.Moreover，cultural transmission is mainly in community without much outside intervention for them.However，migrating children are more easily to be integrated into schools，and get recruited by dominant culture to win upward social mobility.The process of transmission of the traditional rural culture is greatly influenced by dominant culture outside. References
[1]Alba，R.D.，& Nee，V.Remaking the american mainstream：Assimilation and contemporary immigration[M].Cambridge，Mass：Harvard University Press，2003.
[2]Gibson，M.A.Playing by the rules.In G.D.Spindler Education and cultural process：Anthropological approaches[M].Long Grove：Waveland Press，1997：262-269.
[3]Kasnitz，P.，Mollenkopf，J.，& Waters，M.C.Becoming American/Becoming new yorkers：Immigrant incorporation in a majority minority city[J].International Migration Review [H.W.Wilson-SSA]，2002，36（4）：1020-36.
[4]Portes，A.，&Zhou，M.The new second generation：Segmented assimilation and its variants[J].Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science，1993，530（1），74-96.
[5]Spindler，G.D.The transmission of culture.In G.D.Spindler Education and cultural process： Anthropological approaches[M].Long Grove：Waveland Press，1997：275-309.
[6]Sim，M.C.&Stephens，M.Living folklore：An introduction to the study of people and their traditions[M].Logan：Utah State University Press，2005.
[7]Sindell，P.S.Some discontinuities in the enculturation of Mistassini Cree Children.In G.D.Spindler Education and cultural process：Anthropological approaches[M].Long Grove：Waveland Press，1997：383-392.
作者簡介
周栩丹（1991.05.23—），女，汉族，重庆人，硕士，四川外国语大学，重庆市沙坪坝区，社会与比较教育。
Education is a common question faced by both children left behind and staying with migrant parents.In this process，cultural discontinuity and cultural transmission display themselves to different degrees in both groups.In a broad sense，China is a country with Confucius heritage，so the majority of Chinese share common root.Major cities，especially those along eastern coast，are the frontier where globalization exerts great influence.In the long run，free market shakes and dilutes Confucius culture in those places.
Confucius features are better preserved in rural areas that are relatively enclosed.Children left behind risk having more conflict when they leave traditional family and enter formal education.Normally，leftover children are taken care of by aging grandparents whose mindsets might be stereotyped and stubborn to old tradition.Cultural continuity is maintained by skip-generation transmission.Family，a significant folk group in Confucius culture，works to tie children firmly to house chores.According to Sims and Stephens （2005），a folk group may be established because of necessity，obligation or circumstances； proximity； regular interaction； or shared interests or skills.Here in Confucius families，obligation is important bonds except for blood relationship.Familysm，which gives family every privilege，requires family members to divide labor and maximize family benefit，though it might be at the cost of personal benefit.In rural areas where lands are the major source of income，the main display of familysm is to take care of family and make lands harvest.Thus，it is common to see that little girls holding their infant sisters or brothers while cooking for the whole family，and little boys tilling lands in the countryside.Paternalism，emphasizing a strong head of family and strict hierarchy，leads leftover children to share more burden of house chore and farm work for grandparents.There is little informal initiation nowadays in Confucius culture，which marks new status or role of young people in a family.The compression，which means young people display a large amount cultural-related behavior，comes when they are old enough to help house chores and farm work.Except for household responsibility，rural children have free life style.They have little access to toys because of poverty or limited resources，so most of time they depend on themselves for fun.Their conditions are similar to Mistassini Cree children out of school.They are self-reliant，and the interpersonal relations are largely in close kinship （Sindell，1997）.Also，they are not aggressive.It is because Confucius culture requires high moral ethos to maintain social harmony，and for thousands of years Chinese peasants have been self-sufficient so they pay little attention to other people.Discontinuity，which means the management of the young people’s learning from a supportive and easy condition to a harsh and difficult one，begins when they enter school （Spindler，1997）.Schools in rural China can hardly compare with formal education because of the poor source of teachers，teaching materials，and basic infrastructures.Those schools，following only the basic structure of formal urban education，work to enlighten rural children.Even so，rural children need considerable efforts to adapt.Rules and regulations require rural children to make no noise and seat uprightly in classroom.Moreover，they face fierce competition in schools that goes against their unaggressive nature. In comparison，children migrating with parents and attend urban public school confront less discontinuity in transition from family to school.On the one hand，they are more likely to live in nuclear families，which means they do not have to take care of extended families.On the other hand，their parents，though still of low social economic status，have been immersed in urban life for some time，and gradually embrace new mindset.To some degree，they are similar with their urban counterparts except some habits in life.Since parents’ attention is not on harvest of lands any more，responsibility for family displays itself in the form of acquiring upward social mobility in cities.According to segmented assimilation perspective （Portes and Zhou，1993），children might experience upward assimilation because of their parents’ high social economic status or other favorable condition； also，they have downward assimilation because of poor resource of their migrant parents.However，Kasinitz et al.（2002） state that the possibility of downward assimilation is very little.Alba and Nee （2003） point out “most of the contemporary second generation would experience gradually increasing social integration”.We can see dominant culture makes recruitment by education.First，public urban education integrates rural students into a cultural system in general，so that they become urban residents.And then they are recruited to specific social status according to their future social economic status.Migrant group is still minority in cities.They bear their own rural values when they are trying to adapt to the mainstream dominant culture that is led by urban mindset.I will use the conclusion of Gibson （1997） to see why migrant children meet fewer obstacles when they are integrated in school.First of all，migrant parents encourage education because they see the payoff of attending school，which is crucial for the nuclear family to change social economic status in the future.Secondly，although rural migrant workers are from less developed areas，they，together with urban residents，are all Chinese with the same roots.Thus，the resistance toward cultural nuance is not that great.In other words，difference between rural and urban mindset is only a matter of domestic conflict，involving little aggression and invasion.
Rural migrant workers in China form a vulnerable group.They have to leave where they were born and doing less skilled work with slender pay.In order to gradually acquire upward social mobility，it is significant to think about whether it is good for their children to be left behind with grandparents or stay with them in big cities.Though leftover children can have education in rural area，they might meet more cultural discontinuity and conflict in transitional period.Moreover，cultural transmission is mainly in community without much outside intervention for them.However，migrating children are more easily to be integrated into schools，and get recruited by dominant culture to win upward social mobility.The process of transmission of the traditional rural culture is greatly influenced by dominant culture outside. References
[1]Alba，R.D.，& Nee，V.Remaking the american mainstream：Assimilation and contemporary immigration[M].Cambridge，Mass：Harvard University Press，2003.
[2]Gibson，M.A.Playing by the rules.In G.D.Spindler Education and cultural process：Anthropological approaches[M].Long Grove：Waveland Press，1997：262-269.
[3]Kasnitz，P.，Mollenkopf，J.，& Waters，M.C.Becoming American/Becoming new yorkers：Immigrant incorporation in a majority minority city[J].International Migration Review [H.W.Wilson-SSA]，2002，36（4）：1020-36.
[4]Portes，A.，&Zhou，M.The new second generation：Segmented assimilation and its variants[J].Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science，1993，530（1），74-96.
[5]Spindler，G.D.The transmission of culture.In G.D.Spindler Education and cultural process： Anthropological approaches[M].Long Grove：Waveland Press，1997：275-309.
[6]Sim，M.C.&Stephens，M.Living folklore：An introduction to the study of people and their traditions[M].Logan：Utah State University Press，2005.
[7]Sindell，P.S.Some discontinuities in the enculturation of Mistassini Cree Children.In G.D.Spindler Education and cultural process：Anthropological approaches[M].Long Grove：Waveland Press，1997：383-392.
作者簡介
周栩丹（1991.05.23—），女，汉族，重庆人，硕士，四川外国语大学，重庆市沙坪坝区，社会与比较教育。