Educational barriers of rural youth in China

[miaomiaorepo]

My pitch: #95

Summary

In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region，470 out of 1000 elementry students can make it to college , while the numer is 13 in rural China, according to the Rural Education Action Program, Stanford University.

I'm trying to make detailed graphs about college attendance among more regions in China, comparing the urban area and rural area. And partial reasons contributed to the situation.

Data Source:

Rural Education Action Program: http://reap.fsi.stanford.edu/research/organization/6084/67097

Inequalities in the Pathway to College in China: When Do Students from Poor Areas Fall Behind? http://reap.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/277-inequality_pathway_to_college.pdf

Information, college decisions and financial aid:Evidence from a cluster-randomized controlled trial in China http://reap.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Effects_financial_aid_information_China.pdf

College is a Rich, Han, Urban, Male Club:Research Notes from a Census Survey of Four Tier One Colleges in China http://reap.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/s0305741013000647a.pdf

Story issue checklist

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[miaomiaorepo]

moved to post

[playfairbot]

Hi there, I'm the Playfair Bot! Would you mind posting the appropriate checklist in the main body of your issue? You might have posted it as the first comment, but it turns out it works way better in the actual body of the issue. Thanks! :pray:

[jsoma]

Just moved the checklist for you to see if the bot likes it now!

[snajmabadi]

I love this! This is so interesting and the design is very clean. My one suggestion would be to make the colors consistent across the three graphs. For example, use that red color for the second graph about rural dropout rates, etc.

[kbennion]

I love how you use three graphics to tell the story -- you can clearly see how more students are from urban areas, when rural students drop out, and how expensive college is! One suggestion on your third graphic is to add a dollar sign or yuan symbol to the monetary value so we can immediately identify what the number is referencing.

What is the difference between vocational high school and regular high school? That might be a helpful distinction to make for those who aren't as familiar with the educational system in China.

[miaomiaorepo]

I made the last two graphics in red, so it's easy to know that they are talking about rural areas.

[barjacks]

Looking great! I'm not sure I understand fully, what the subtitle of the graph is: "Relation of Individual and contextual difference variable". I would try to find some better and simpler words to describe this.

[jsoma]

I think the first two line charts are really simple and clean, and I think we could apply the same styles to the two below in order to carry the feeling through:

Background colors: I like the grey highlight for the background, but I'd actually transition to solid edges instead of the rounded ones. I think they wind up being slightly more professional and have a little more of a "serious" feel to them. You might also want to remove the borders around the "After..." bits to simplify the graphic a bit 😉

For the dropout rate in the middle, I was talking to Nicky about it and we were thinking an area graph would be nice. Is the other 10% unknown? You could mark it as gray if so.

You could go left to right tracking when people dropped out and it might have more of a "this is how things changed over time" feel to it.

For the final graph I think a simple vertical (or even horizontal) bar chart would work, with a line for "median household income" - high school would be under the bar and college would pop above it.