Research On The Migrant Workers' Urban Identity And Urban Attatchment

Urban identity refers to migrant workers trying to be familiar and then struggling to find a sense of belonging to the urban population and the urban environment; urban attachment refers to the emotion or feelings during the interaction between the migrant workers and urban population or the urban environment. According to these definitions, the researcher design questionnaires on the migrant workers' urban identity and urban attachment based on literature review, interviews with phychologists, open-ended interviews with migrant workers. The formal questionnaire is came into being after a pilot study and revision in order to assure the reliability and validity. All together 787 migrant workers are investigated in the present study, and the effects of gender, age, education, etc. are analyzed to explore the characteristics of the migrant workers'urban identity and urban attachment. Besides, the researcher trys to analyze the relationship between their urban identity and urban attachment through structural equation model, etc. Based on the study results, the main findings of the research are as follows:(1) The self-made questionnaire has relatively high reliability and validity and can serve as an instrument to test migrant workers' urban identity and ruban attachment. The Migrant workers' Urban Identity Questionnaire is made up of two sub-questionnaires:Social Identity Questionnaire and Place Identity Questionnaire, while the Migrant workers' Attachment Questionnaire is made up of Social Attachment Questionnaire and Place attachment Questionnaire. By means of factor analysis, the researcher finds that the Migrant workers' Urban Identity-Social Identity Questionnaire incorporates 4 dimensions:positive recognition, orientation to learn, urban resistance and urban integration. The Migrant workers' Urban Identity-Place Identity Questionnaire is constructed with 3 dimensions:positive yearning, alienation from the city and sense of belonging. The two sub-questionnaries of Attachment Questionnaire are both composed of 3 dimensions:active approach, coziness and intimacy. These are basically consistent with the theoretical hypothesis except the unpredictable urban resistance and alienation from the city.(2) The migrant workers'urban identity and urban attachment presents a middle or slightly higher level generally. The order of the rating of the factors in each sub-questionnaire is as follows: in social identity sub-questionnaire, positive recognition> urban resistance, urban intergration> orientation to learn> median 2; In place identity sub-questionnaire, positive yearning> sense of belonging> median 2> alienation from the city; In social attachment sub-questionnaire, active approach> coainess, intimacy and active approach> coziness> median 2; In place attachment sub-questionnaire, active approach> intimacy> median 2> coziness. The order of the four sub-questionnaires is as follows:place identity> social identity> place attachment> social attachment> median 2, and cluster analysis shows that there is a stable set of combination of the sub-questionnaire scores.(3) The linear model and the two-dimensional model of ethnic identity are both supported partly. Both urban integration and sense of belonging are growing with the working time in the cities while both the urban resistance and alienation from the city didn't go down with the working time in the city, these all support the two-dimensional model. But the urban resistance and urban integration is slightly negative correlate as well as the alienation from the city and sense of belonging, which slightly proves that the linear model is right. In all, the liner model is supposed to explain how the identity be constructed and the Two-dimensional model are more concerned about what the different identity status can produce.(4) The migrant workers'urban identity and urban attachment vary with education, income level, career and the background of family members.(5) The relationship between identity and attachment is rather complicated. On the one hand, the social identity and social attachment is a complicated model evolving from independent variable, i.e. active approach to depent variable, i.e. urban integration. On the other hand, the place identity and attachment is a relational model evolving from two independent variables, i. e. active approach and positive yearning to dependent variable, i. e. sense of belonging.