From Unequal Resources to Unequal Opportunities: The Transformation and Mechanisms of Urban–Rural Educational Inequality

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_28How to use a DOI?

Keywords

The educational inequality between urban and rural areas; the hidden gaps; education policy; cultural capital; education government

Abstract

In China, the disparity between urban and rural schools with respect to structures and simple amenities has been bridged over the recent years. Nevertheless, there are other inequalities that run deeper in areas like quality of pedagogy, the scope of the curriculum, and learning opportunities of the students. This paper explores the way urban/ rural educational inequalities have changed since the blatant inequality in the provision of material resources to more prudent and insidious hidden gaps. The following unseen gaps are the differences in teaching practices, the utilization of digital technology, the support of families, and the results of policy implementation. This paper will base its arguments on a review of recent works by arguing that these disparities are not based on the singular aspects but are a result of the relationship between the institutional structures, economic conditions, the cultural capital, and the execution of the policy. The impact of urban bias and unbalanced development of localities influence the expectations of families and the availability of resources that are further supported by the policies that cannot take into account local realities completely. According to the findings, to attain real educational equity, it is necessary to go beyond the resources availment to systemic reforms, such as capacity building, institutional optimization, and long-term support solutions specific to rural schools.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Kuntai Pang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/07
TI  - From Unequal Resources to Unequal Opportunities: The Transformation and Mechanisms of Urban–Rural Educational Inequality
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 12th International Conference on Digital Humanities and Frontiers in Social Sciences (DHFSS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 250
EP  - 256
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_28
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_28
ID  - Pang2026
ER  -