The Effects of Peer Parental Education on Student Achievement in Urban China: The Disparities Between Migrants and Locals

Abstract

Despite scholarly consensus on the positive influence of peers’ parental education on students’ academic achievement, less is known about whether marginalized students reap similar benefits as their nonmarginalized counterparts. Using data from the China Educational Panel Survey and a quasi-experimental design, we show that the impact of classmates’ parental education on test scores is significantly stronger for local students than for migrant students in urban schools. These differential effects are largely driven by rural-to-urban migrants and not by urban-to-urban migrants. Additionally, we find that rural migrant students benefit less from the positive effects of peer parental education than their local counterparts, especially when their local peers hold higher levels of discriminative attitudes toward rural migrant students in their classes.