REAP Summer Internship 2015

This summer, interns traveled with our research team to one of three project sites in rural China. Through conversations with individuals affected by REAP's programs, they put a human face on the issues afflicting many of China's rural poor. At the end of the summer, they returned to Stanford to write up their results into qualitative academic papers.

Henan Province

As part of our ongoing project to understand and improve Vocational Education in China, interns conducted qualitative interviews with current vocational high school students in Henan Province.

REAP interns speak with families about their experience with education in rural China.

Our quantitative data collection over the past five years has revealed that vocational high schools in China are providing low quality education on average. Students are not making significant learning gains in math or in their major skills. Dropout rates are high. Many students are going into internships that are not related to their majors and are not compliant with legal standards. 

This summer, we wanted to do some more work to find out what is going on in vocational schools to drive this problem. What does a typical day look like for a vocational high school student in China? How are students taught and how do they interact with their teachers? What might be driving students to drop out of school at such high rates? To find answers to these kinds of questions, our team of interns interviewed current vocational high school students as well as students who had already dropped out of vocational school. 

Ultimately, we intend to bring together quantitative survey data and these qualitative stories to write an academic paper explaining the underlying factors that may be contributing to the apparent low quality of vocational high schools in China today. Working paper coming soon.

Shaanxi Province

Working on our Perfecting Parenting project, interns first spoke with caregivers to understand parental attitudes towards child play and development. They sought to gain a more comprehensive standing of the status quo in rural China, beyond the numbers. Next, they gathered initial impressions of REAP's new play centers, from both the caregivers who use them and the government workers who run them. Read their paper here.

REAP interns visit an elementary school reading room.

Guizhou Province

Interns working on the Learning through Reading project interviewed principals, teachers, and students to understand their thoughts on reading both in and outside of the classroom. They aimed to understand why youngsters in China appear to spend significantly less time reading than children in other countries, and how that may impact their education. Read their paper here.