Negotiating Exclusion: An Ethnographic Study of the Street Children in Shanghai, China

This dissertation, "Negotiating Exclusion: an Ethnographic Study of the Street Children in Shanghai, China" by 程福財, Fucai, Cheng, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled "Negotiating exclusion: an ethnographic study of the street children in Shanghai, China" Submitted by CHENG Fucai for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in February 2008 Based on a study of the street children in Shanghai, this research examines the dynamic process of how street children are socially excluded and how they subjectively perceive, understand, and react to their exclusion. Social, cultural and institutional factors producing the exclusion and the street children's individual agency in dealing with the exclusion are both explored in this study. The qualitative ethnographic approach was adopted for the study. Seven-month fieldwork was conducted both in the public streets - the neighborhood of Shanghai Railway Station - and at a governmental Protection and Education Center for Street Children. Participant observation and unstructured and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. Fieldwork lasted from April 2005 to September of the same year, and was resumed in January of 2006 as a follow-up. In the fieldwork conducted in the streets, thirty-nine street children were observed and interviewed in an unstructured manner. During fieldwork at the Center more than 300 street children were present there. Rich data was collected from ten of them through semi-structured interviews. These ten children, together with the thirty-nine children observed and/or interviewed in the public streets, constitute the main informants for this study. All interviews were transcribed and then coded, together with the field notes. This study finds that the street children were socially excluded from their right to provision of life necessities; from their right to protection from discrimination, exploitation and abuse; and from their right to participation in decision-making affecting their lives. From the analysis, three mechanisms producing the dynamics of social exclusion of the street children have been identified. The social exclusion is: 1) driven by social, cultural and institutional factors; 2) mediated by the street children's perceptions and reactions to the exclusion; and 3) aggravated by the self-reinforcing nature of the social exclusion. Policy implications on helping the street children have been drawn. This study also sheds light on strategies that street children workers could use to tackle the social exclusion problem. A preventive-remedial intervention model is suggested. The limitations of the study and the directions for future study are discussed. (343 words) DOI: 10.5353/th_b3955896 Subjects: Street children - China - Shanghai