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To combat poverty in China's rural areas, Chinese government has established an unconditional cash transfer program known as the Rural Minimum Living Standard Guarantee (Rural Dibao) Program. Interestingly, despite the importance of education in breaking cycles of poverty, little is known about Rural Dibao's impact on rural children's education. This study investigates Rural Dibao's impact on rural children's learning outcomes by first examining targeting issues within the program, exploring a causal relationship between Rural Dibao and learning outcomes, and then exploring potential mechanisms and heterogeneous effects.

Fixed effects model and propensity score weighting method and data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from the years 2010 and 2014 were used.

The results suggest that the Rural Dibao program suffers from high levels of targeting error, yet is still effective (i.e., program transfers generally still go to people in need). The fixed effects and propensity score weighting models find that program participation raises rural children's standardized test scores in CFPS Chinese-language and math tests. In investigating mechanisms, increased education expenditure seems to connect Rural Dibao participation to increased learning results. The heterogeneity analysis shows that poorer, non-eastern, not left behind, younger or male children benefit from the program (while others have no effect).

These findings suggest that Rural Dibao participation boosts rural children's learning, which could indicate a long-term anti-poverty effect, and that if the program can resolve targeting problems, this effect could be even greater.

Since the implementation of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) in 2003, this program has experienced rapid growth. Even so, little is known about the association between NCMS expansion and labor force supply among rural residents in China. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the NCMS on labor force supply for rural Chinese populations.

Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), a difference-in-differences (DD) approach is employed to estimate the impact of NCMS expansion on labor supply outcomes, including hours of worked in agriculture, off-farm labor force participation, not working, and weeks off due to illness. A number of falsification tests are conducted to identify whether the assumption of common trends of DD analyses is satisfied. The robustness of results is checked through additional estimation, including panel fixed effects and instrumental variable approach.

Results show that the NCMS expansion has a positive effect on the hours of worked in agriculture and off-farm labor force participation, and reduces the likelihood of not working and weeks off due to illness. The effect on hours of agricultural production is larger for male adults, those aged 50 or more, and individuals in low-income families. This study demonstrates the importance of potential health improvements from public health insurance in promoting rural residents’ labor productivity.

Studies concerning the effects of public health insurance on labor supply in developing countries remain limited. The findings of this study provide important insights into how public health insurance programs, like the NCMS, may affect patterns of labor supply among rural residents, and can help policymakers improve health policies aimed to reduce the number of uninsured farmers while maintaining high levels of labor supply, productivity, and health status among the most vulnerable of populations.

Many public health systems have struggled with the dual questions of (1) why the uptake rate of maternal health services is low among some subpopulations; and (2) how to raise it. The objective of this study is to assess the uptake rate of a new set of maternal health services in poor rural areas of China.

The analysis is based on the survey responses of women’s representatives and village cadres from almost 1000 villages in June 2012 as part of a wide-scale public health survey in Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan provinces in the western part of China.

We find that the uptake rate of maternal health services (including in-hospital delivery, antenatal care visits and post-partum care visits) in poor rural areas of western China are far below average in China, and that the rates vary across provinces and ethnic groups. Our analyses demonstrate that distance, income, ethnicity and availability appear to be systematically correlated with low uptake rates of all maternal health services. Demand-side factors seem to be by far the most important sources of the differences between subpopulations. We also find that there is potential for creating a Conditional Cash Transfer program to improve the usage of maternal health services.

We believe that our results will contribute positively to the exploration of answers to the dual questions that many public health systems have struggled with (1) why the uptake rate of maternal health services is low among some subpopulations; and (2) how to raise it.

Research suggests social exclusion is linked to violence. To expand what is known about risk factors for violence, this study investigates links between having a parent with a history of incarceration and experiencing social exclusion. Data from waves 1 and 4 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health were used to conduct regression analyses to assess associations between parental incarceration and social exclusion adjusting for child, parent, and family factors. Results indicate that compared to individuals whose parents had never been incarcerated, those who reported a parent had been incarcerated were at greater risk of experiencing material exclusion, incarceration, and multiple forms of exclusion. When assessing differences by parent gender, results indicate that those who reported their mother had been incarcerated compared to those who reported their father had been incarcerated had higher risk of being incarcerated themselves and experiencing multiple forms of exclusion. Since research suggests social exclusion increases violence risk, studies are needed (1) to identify mechanisms linking parental incarceration to offspring social exclusion and (2) to increase understanding around differential impact by parent gender. Such studies can inform development of interventions to promote better outcomes in this vulnerable sub-population of children.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the economic impacts of intra- and inter-regional water reallocation on sectoral transformation and economic growth.

A multi-sector, Ramsey-type growth model is fit to Chinese data and used to perform policy experiments.

An intra-regional water reallocation increases per capita gross domestic product (GDP) by about 1.5 percent per year over the period 2000-2060. The aggregate potential welfare gain due to this reallocation is 1002.51 billion RMB. Transferring water from southern to northern China via the South-North Water Transfer Project, on average, has a negligible impact on per capita GDP over the period 2000-2060, but aggregate welfare increases by 557.23 billion RMB. Combining intra-regional and inter-regional water reallocations, on average, increases per capita GDP by 0.38 percent per year over the period and the aggregate welfare gain from this combination is 1148.06 billion RMB. Each policy scenario has implications for long-run regional production patterns: In an intra-regional reallocation scenario, Southern China produces almost 70 percent of aggregate GDP, in the inter-regional transfer it produces 58 percent of aggregate GDP, while in a combined intra/inter-regional reallocation it produces 55 percent of aggregate GDP.

This analysis can serve as a template for developing a useful planning tool that one can fit to national or regional data and use to examine a variety of policy relevant questions.

Although CLS has been implemented in China for over a century, it is barely known to educators internationally. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the salient characteristics of Chinese lesson study (CLS), introduce the major themes of this special issue, and invite dialogues about the theories and practices of CLS.

The authors of this editorial paper conducted an extensive literature review on CLS, analyzed the contents and methods of the existing research categorically, compared CLS with other models of LS globally, and present this special issue articles and their major contributions thematically. The theoretical framework of the paper relies mainly on cultural theories and theories on research paradigms such as improvement science, which explain why and how CLS functions in Chinese education system over time.

Existing studies suggest that CLS is a deliberate practice for developing instructional expertise, a research methodology for linking research and practice, and an improvement science for instruction and school improvement system wide. In addition to the theorization of CLS, this special issue also introduces some adaptations of CLS outside of China such as the USA and Italy.

This paper, for the first time, spells out some salient features of CLS, and discusses issues in adapting CLS in other parts of the world. It will enrich the understanding of LS theories and practices in China and promotes trans-cultural development of LS internationally.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the cultural roots of Chinese lesson study (LS) so as to account for its persistence in the Chinese education history as well as its importance in Chinese teacher professional development and student learning.

The overarching research question is: “How can Chinese lesson study be theorized from a cultural perspective?” The sub-questions include: “What cultural features do Chinese teachers demonstrate in their LS activities? How can traditional Chinese cultural resources be utilized in explaining the existence and development of these features?” Based on a close reading of firsthand classic texts on Chinese cultural thoughts and related literature, the researchers collected data from Chinese teachers’ LS activities, stimulated recall interviews and focus groups, and related documents. An analysis is conducted with interplay among the theoretical framework, the data, and the researchers’ personal insights.

The findings of the study include three aspects. First, in terms of their actions, the Chinese teachers enact their understanding of teaching in public lessons through unity of knowing and doing (知行合一) more than conceptual explication. Second, with regard to their thinking, the Chinese teachers use practical reasoning (实践推理) in deliberate practice of repeated teaching through group inquiry and reflection. Third, a tendency of emulating those better than oneself (见贤思齐) is evident in novice teachers’ learning from “good” examples by expert teachers.

The revelation of these cultural features can not only contribute to a deeper understanding about the persistence and importance of LS in the Chinese education history, but also provide an example of analyzing LS from a cultural perspective to the world LS community.

A first post-WALS attempt at a thematic analysis of the conference presentations since its first annual meeting in 2007, this paper aims to achieve two major purposes: first, to capture the trends of spread and diffusion of lesson and learning studies globally and second, to draw useful implications for future conferences.

A thematic analysis using NVIVO12.0 coding on all forms of conference presentations found in the WALS 2019 Conference Programme was conducted. Representative cases were selected from paper and symposiums sessions to support the claims generated from the analysis.

The study provides an evidence-based confirmation of the global spread and diffusion of lesson and learning studies. It uncovers findings key to the initial spread and continued diffusion; examines funding as a mechanism enabling university–school research relationships, models of adaptations and issues of sustainability; surfaces the theoretical models and methods adopted in paper and symposia presentations. The current situation, lessons learned and possible implications for future WALS conferences are discussed.

Inform research on practical cases.

Lessons learned are discussed.

These are possible implications for future WALS conferences.

The originality lies in its being the first WALS post-conference analysis aiming at identifying substantive themes with potential to draw important implications for future research and subsequent years' conferences.