| Summary: | Peidu (accompanying a child for study) is one of the outcomes of current
unbalanced educational development in China. A field survey and a series
of semi-structured interviews indicated that the resource delivery in rural
families involving peidu mainly sources from four aspects: the spatial
mobility of class pressure, the needs for the integration of family resources,
the continuous increases in living costs, and the flexible feedback of
educational expectations. The channel of resource delivery in rural
families, namely peidu, displays characteristics including families’ choice
of conformity behavior and the singleness of estimate standard; the lack of
professional support, and the inadequacy of family-school interactions; the
conflicts of behaviors and habits, and poor intergenerational interactions.
Restricted by the choice of delivery channel and family circumstances,
peidu in rural families shows the Matthew effect, which increases
disparities within the rural class, and thus exerts a three-level influence. At
the individual level, it has a positive influence upon individuals’ fulfilling
their absolute mobility, but their relative mobility still faces various
difficulties. Moreover, it means the relative deprivation of certain family
members’ benefits to a certain extent; at the family level, disadvantaged
families are exposed to the risk of further marginalization; and at the
social level, the “theater effect” from peidu exacerbates the inequality
between classes.
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