Social enterprise working with internal migrant children in China : values, challenges and constraints

• Main Author: Guan, Shanshan
• Other Authors: Snell, Carolyn ; Biehal, Nina
• Published: University of York 2017
• Subjects: 362.87
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.725035

This is an exploratory research study which examines the role of social enterprise in delivering services to children who migrate within China. Under the current Hukou policy framework, migrant children face a variety of challenges due to differences in the level and accessibility of welfare support available for migrant people and migrant children. Social enterprise, as one form of non-institutional welfare service provision, has become an increasingly important vehicle for addressing a variety of social problems. However, very little empirical research has been conducted regarding the contributions and constraints of these social enterprises, especially social enterprises working with internal migrant children in China. In this study, an ethnographic approach was employed to examine the nature of social enterprises working with migrant children. Two community-based social enterprises which aimed to promote social inclusion and improve unmet child well-being by providing community centre services were intensively studied. The researcher was immersed in each social enterprise for six weeks. Data from these observations were triangulated with data from interviews, focus group meetings and document analysis. The key finding of this thesis is twofold. First, it developed a multi-layered social enterprise ecosystem to explain the operation of social enterprises by looking at the macro-, meso- and micro-level environments and at the stakeholders who operate within the different layers. This framework highlights the constraints of the institutional context in China and the powerlessness of the researched community-based social enterprises to respond to the uncertain policy environment. The researched social enterprises had limited ability to respond to the substantial challenges of migrant children, but even so they each made a great contribution to migrant children’s subjective well-being. Second, the findings highlight the crucial role of the co-production process during the identification of needs and the development of an appropriate service. By looking at their daily practice, it was also possible to discuss the ‘need-driven’ mission drift, which had not been considered in previous studies. The conclusion of this study is that the social enterprise approach is an emerging mechanism for supporting migrant children but that social enterprises have great space for improving their operations.