Research On The Problem Of College Matriculation For Migrant Children Participating In In-Flow Areas In China:Based On The Perspective Of Public Policy Process Theory

The problem of college matriculation for children of migrant workers becomes the hot spot in high educational field of our country in recent years. Meanwhile, it is also a difficult issue which need the central government and local governments take necessary steps to deal with properly. Whether this problem can be solved effectively not only affects the future and destiny of migrant children, but also directly concerns whether the justice and equity in the educational field are guaranteed. With the increasing voice from migrant children appealing for participating in college entrance examination in in-flow areas, the problem was gradually paid more attention by governmental officials and the public, which propelled this issue to be raised on the government agenda and accelerated concrete reform programs to be published as soon as possible. However, in the process of carrying out the reform, we were confronted with a great many difficulties, such as the restriction of intrinsic constitutional factors, the deficiency of feasible policies and methods, sharp interest conflicts between migrant children and local examinee, and etc. These problems could impede the reform process and result in the ultimate failure.The concept of public policy process was expounded from the paradigm of policy science founded by Lasswell, and its dominant ideas was based on stage theory of policy process. As the influence range of stage theory was expanded continuously, the theory of public policy process developed deeply and was innovated gradually as well. The framework of multiple streams theory established by John. Kingdon can be viewed as a kind of classic theory aiming at researching the governmental pre-decision process; policy network theory that pursues the target of democracy, equity, participation and interaction emphasizes the network structure of policy process and analyzes actors in the policy network as well as their interactive relationships. The former casts aside the comprehensive though of stage theory, and chooses a certain stage to research deeply; the latter mainly compensates shortcomings of stage theory, laying stress on the political analysis of policy process, which makes great contributions for the development of policy science discipline. In addition, research shows that the combination of multiple streams theory and policy network theory has the theoretical possibility and the academical inevitability.This paper is exactly based on the perspective of public policy process theory, and attempts to apply the multiple streams theory and the policy network theory to research the problem of college matriculation for migrant children in China. Firstly, the problem is introduced briefly, and related literature about it are reviewed. Then, literature at home and broad on multiple streams theory and policy network theory are also reviewed. Next, these two theories are clarified separately in detail and the contents of necessity and possibility about combing them are analyzed as well. Additionally, on the basis of analyzing the applicability of multiple streams theory researching this problem, studies focus on how the problem was concerned by governmental officials and was raised on government agenda; on which alternatives survived in the policy soup and how their destiny were; on why concrete policies failed to make; on why the central government transferred the power of making policies to local governments and on why all the policies made by local governments were widely divergent. In order to compensate on research insufficiency brought by multiple streams theory, policy network theory was continued to use to explore the problem under the consideration of the two theories possessing external connections and internal logicality. For examples, all kinds of network actors included in the whole policy environment need to be classified; their network resource occupations and their interactive relationships are also analyzed one by one. Thus, we can understand how the causal relationship between actors’status, their speaking right, their influence and the reform result formed and changed. At last, according to the analysis conclusion, policies and suggestions are provided to make a further promotion for solving this problem, such as deepening the reform of intrinsic constitutional factors, meeting the criteria judgment that makes alternatives survive, dealing with the authority-responsibility relationship between the central government and local governments, bringing mass media into full play, and inducting virtuous interactive relationships among network actors correctly.