Shanghai Baseline Report

The GEAS took place in a working-class neighborhood in Shanghai. In 2010, the population of Zhabei District (now incorporated into Jing’an District) was 830,476, and home to Shanghai’s largest proportion of urban poor and internal migrants. The Zhabei district is divided into 9 sub- districts.

There are a total of 30 secondary schools serving nearly 16,000 children between the ages of 11 and 15 located in the Jing’an district. There are two main types of secondary schools covering Grade 6 to Grade 9: public schools and private schools. Public secondary schools enroll students who live around the school according to proximity and provide tuition waivers based on the national nine year mandatory education policy. Private secondary schools enroll students who live scattered in the whole district or even the whole city, and students pay tuition fees ranging from USD $2,400-13,000 per year. There is income disparity between the two types of schools, with poor children more likely to attend public school than private schools. Adolescents were selected from public schools in two less-developed sub-districts of the Jing’an district.