Education, Work, and Citizenship of Youth in China: Strategies, Achievements, and Challenges

Abstract

This article examines China’s strategies for and constraints on protecting and implementing children’s and young people’s rights to education, employment and social and political participation. It shows that the 1978 policy of reform and opening to the world brought forth significant domestic economic and social changes and exposed China and its people to the world. All this, in turn, created new demands and concerns for the development of youth education, work and citizenship. The article further shows that in China, these three domains of youth have been influenced by changing domestic and global contexts, and the state has played a vital role in facilitating these changes in three major spheres of youth. China, however, has also been confronted with equity issues arising from new developments in these domains.