A Comparative Study on Creativity Between Migrant Children and

Non-Migrant (Urban) Children

Shuming Chen

Shanghai World Foreign Language Academy, Shanghai, 201103, China

Keywords: Creativity, Migrant Children, Urban Children, Educational Equity, Child Development.

Abstract: Migrant children represent one of the most pressing issues in today’s world, as they frequently encounter

serious obstacles such as forced displacement, limited educational opportunities, and trauma from their

experiences. Researchers have made progress in studying the general challenges faced by migrant children,

such as education and socialization. However, there is a research gap in the details of the difficulties.

Therefore, this paper aims to study creativity, which is becoming an important part of education, by collecting

data on the factors affecting creativity in previous studies and comparing migrant and non-migrant children

on these factors. It is found that the creativity of migrant children is generally lower than that of non-migrant

children mainly due to family and school factors. However, migrant status can also contribute to the

development of creativity to some extent. Therefore, the strengths of both statuses should be combined to

better foster creativity and also to narrow the educational gap between the two groups of children.

1 INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the topic of migrant children is getting

more and more attention. According to a research of

2020 China’s Child Population conducted in 2023,

there were 71.09 million migrant children in total,

which occupied 24% of the total China’s child

population (National Bureau of Statistics, 2023). This

was mainly caused by the large-scale migration. Due

to various disparities between migrant and non-

migrant children, such as in education and social

aspects, migrant children are facing challenges such

as limited educational resources and reduced parental

involvement, which have been documented in many

previous studies. Nowadays, creativity gradually

becomes a crucial part of education, not only from a

personal perspective but also from the national

perspective. On May 29, 2023, the fifth collective

study of the Political Bureau of the Chinese

Communist Party Central Committee emphasized the

need to strengthen the independent training of

innovative talents to support the core technology

research in China (Bai et al., 2024). As the critical

period of talent development is the early year, it is

important to cultivate children’s creativity in primary

and secondary school (Zhou, 2024). Although the

factors that influence creativity have been studied,

there remains a notable gap in exploring the

differences in migrant children’s and non-migrant

children’s creativity levels. As a result, this study

aims to address this gap by comparing two groups of

children in terms of factors affecting creativity,

further providing practical advice on closing the

education gap.

2 KEY CONCEPTS

2.1 Definition of Creativity

The definition of creativity always remains vague and

dynamic. Until now, the researchers have had

difficulties coming up with a universal and explicit

one (Craft, 2001). Nevertheless, researchers once

collected different versions of definitions in

Webster’s Dictionary from 1953 to 2008, finding that

each version defined it differently but with just slight

differences (Robinnson, 2008). This shows that

despite the discrepancy, the general direction of

defining creativity is similar. In this research,

creativity is defined on the grounds of Johnston and

Torrance’s work: “the process of sensing problems,

forming ideas, and driving unprecedented solutions of

unique problems with elaboration and embellishment”

(Tennent & Berthelsen, 1997).

Chen, S.

A Comparative Study on Creativity Between Migrant Children and Non-Migrant (Urban) Children.

DOI: 10.5220/0014138600004942

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Applied Psychology and Mar keting Management (APMM 2025), pages 527-532

ISBN: 978-989-758-791-7

527

2.2 Migrant Children

The definition of migrant children also remains

dynamic. Depending on the focus of each era or the

changes in economic, social or policy environment,

the concept of migrant children is constantly

changing (Han et al., 2020). According to a 2015

report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS),

UNICEF, and other organizations, migrant

population suggests the population whose place of

residence and place of household registration are not

consistent and who have been away from the place of

registration for more than half a year, excluding those

who have been separated from their households

within the municipal district. Migrant children are the

ones aged 0-17 in the migrant population (National

Bureau of Statistics, 2017).

Under the backdrop of a growing awareness in

education, the situation of migrant children is in fact

gradually improving. A study shows that most of the

migrant children in China have already come to the

cities in which they live when they were infants and

toddlers. 26.6% of the interviewees were born in the

place of inflow, more than 52.8% came to the place

of inflow before kindergarten, and as many as 76.7%

came to the place of inflow before elementary school

(Wan, 2024). However, migrant children still face

some problems that other urban children might not

face or are not that severe, such as bullying,

psychological health problems and unfairness in

education. Specifically, in terms of bullying, in 2022,

39.2% of migrant students were bullied in schools and

about 21.1% experienced cyberbullying (Wan, 2024),

which is already higher than the international average

of about 15.0% (Modecki et al., 2014). In addition, in

education, although the issue of fairness in

compulsory education has been basically solved, in

the stage of non-compulsory education, they still face

some challenges, including ineligibility for public

pre-school education system and inability of cross-

provincial migrant children to enjoy the same

qualifications for senior secondary education (Wan,

2024).

Therefore, it can be seen that the gaps between

migrant children and urban children still exist,

especially in the field of education.

3 CREATIVITY OF NON-

MIGRANT (URBAN)

CHILDREN

As mentioned before, creativity is increasingly valued

in the education field. In order to trace this trend, Qin

and Wang created a childhood creativity research

keywords highlight time zone mapping. They found

that mutant words “creativity development”,

“creative thinking skills”, “interest”, “art education”,

“music education” and “innovation” gradually

emerged one by one during 2010 to 2015.

“Developmental strategies” appeared in 2018 and

continued through 2019. These reflected the research

and fostering focus - childhood creativity (Qin &

Wang, 2020).

3.1 Main Factors that Affect the

Creativity Level

3.1.1 Family Factors

Family factors play a big role in the development of

creativity. It includes various aspects such as number

of siblings, birth order, socioeconomic status (SES),

parenting style, parental relationship, and sibling

relationship (Nakao et al., 2000).

Several studies have found that SES is closely

related to the creativity level for children. In the study

conducted by Yufang Yang, the researchers use

Preschool Creativity Activity Scale for Preschoolers

to assess the creativity level of 905 preschoolers and

Children and assess their SES. The correlation

coefficient (r) between creativity level and SES is

0.255. Thus, there is a positive correlation between

the two variables. The absolute value of correlation

coefficient (r) is not very close to 1, so the positive

correlation may not be very strong. The overall trend

can be obtained: the higher the SES, the greater the

creativity level (Yang, 2023). This trend is not only

true for preschoolers. Many studies have explored

creativity level of children of different ages and found

similar positive correlation, including preschool

children, kindergarten children and elementary and

middle school children (Yang, 2023).

Parenting style can be another important factor

that affects children’s creativity. There are four main

parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian,

permissive and neglectful. In the present study, the

first three styles are discussed. Authoritative

parenting style is characterized by warmth and

autonomy encouragement. Parents usually have close

ties and positive emotional bonds with children.

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Authoritarian parenting style suggests that parents are

low in acceptance, autonomy and close ties.

Permissive parenting style is high in warmth but low

in involvement (Mehrinejad et al., 2015; Jankowska

& Gralewski, 2022). Mehrinejad et al. examined the

relationship between these three parenting styles and

creativity level. Researchers collected data from 400

junior high school students. For authoritative

parenting styles, r = 0.14, indicating there is a positive

relationship between creativity and authoritative

parenting styles. By contrast, for authoritarian

parenting styles, r=-0.15, indicating the negative

relationship between two variables. The p-value for

both styles is smaller than 0.01, indicating significant

correlations. As p-value for permissive parenting is

larger than 0.01, there is no relationship between

creativity and permissive parenting. Therefore, the

characteristics of authoritative parenting style, which

are high levels of warmth, autonomy and close ties,

are thought to be beneficial for the development of

children’s creativity.

This conclusion is also consistent with the results

of Yangyu fang’s study. In addition to studying the

relationship between SES and creativity mentioned

earlier, she also examined the effect of parental

involvement in children’s play on creativity. Based

on the analysis, she found that the correlation

coefficient (r) was 0.521. As r is positive, and its

absolute value is closer to 1, there is a positive and

strong relationship between parental involvement and

creativity. That is, the more appropriate parents

participate in children’s play, the better their

children’s creativity develops. The characteristic of

parents’ appropriate participation in children’s play is

exactly what authoritative parenting style involves,

and authoritarian parenting does not do well.

3.1.2 School Factors

School, as a place other than home, where children

spend most of their time, can play a significant role in

shaping their personality and cognitive abilities. The

sources of influence can be divided into three

categories, namely school physical environment,

teachers and peers.

Firstly, from the aspect of school physical

environment, open, spacious indoor and outdoor

areas help students develop creativity. Besides, the

influence of a teacher is dependent on his teaching

mode. Researchers investigated the relationship

between students’ creativity and teachers’

encouragement, intrinsic motivation and creative

process participation. The results showed that the

three factors mentioned above all had significant

positive effects on students’ creativity ((Mehrinejad

et al., 2015). Moreover, the influence of peers is

mainly determined by the harmonious relationship

between peers. A collaborative peer atmosphere and

participation in more group activities can help foster

creativity (Yang, 2023). Children who are members

of peer circles are slightly more creative than non-

circle members (Bai et al., 2024).

4 CREATIVITY OF MIGRANT

CHILDREN

4.1 Overall Creativity Level

Compared to non-migrant (urban) children, the

creativity level of migrant children is much lower. A

study conducted by Yiqi Dai et al. focused on the

comparison of creativity between migrant and urban

children. In the study, researchers collected data from

1047 participants in Hangzhou, while 40.78% were

migrant children and the rest were urban children.

Using the Chinese version of Williams’ Creative

Inclinations Test, they got the result that the mean

total score for migrant children was 107.86, which

was lower than the score for urban children, which

was 114.42 (p<0.001). This indicates that there are

indeed significant differences between the creativity

level of two groups, with the urban children being

more creative (Dai et al., 2024).

This result is generally aligned with a comparative

study between migrant and urban supernormal

children conducted by Wang, Y., He, C., & Cheng, L.

They selected 40 migrant supernormal children from

Beijing and 141 urban supernormal children from

Wuxi as samples and assessed their creativity from

three dimensions, which are fluency, flexibility and

uniqueness respectively. From the perspective of the

total score, the average creativity score of urban

supernormal children was 28.16 points, much higher

than that of migrant supernormal children (25.12

points) (p<0.05). Thus, significant differences exist

between two groups. However, individual p-value for

uniqueness was 0.58, which was larger than 0.05,

suggesting the great possibility that the differences

were caused by chance. Therefore, there were no

significant differences between the two groups. What

can be implied from this is that migrant status can

help develop uniqueness or urban status has negative

impact on uniqueness (Wang et al., 2017). Another

conclusion that came out of this study is that the

creativity level of migrant supernormal children can

exceed the urban supernormal children at a certain

point in time. Researchers compared the creativity

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529

level of supernormal children with 12 years old and

13 years old respectively, finding that the score in all

three dimensions for the 13-year-old were all much

higher for migrant supernormal children (Wang et al.,

2017). Although there could be some limitations due

to regional differences arising in comparison between

children from different provinces (Beijing and Wuxi),

what can be deduced is that migrant status may in

some ways be more conductive to creativity than

urban status in present social content. Consequently,

in order to boost children’s creativity, it’s important

to identify the factors that contribute to the creativity

gap between two statuses and to incorporate the

benefits of both.

4.2 Factors that Lead to Differences in

Overall Creativity Level

4.2.1 Differences in Family Factors

In 3.1.1, some main family factors that will affect the

creativity level have been discussed. Indeed, previous

studies have found certain differences in these factors

between migrant and urban children.

SES is mainly measured by three indicators:

parents’ education level, family economic income,

and parents’ occupation (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002).

According to the study conducted by Yiqi Dai et al.

which has been discussed before, among 1047

participants, around 65% of urban children’s mothers

and fathers respectively had a level of education that

was college and above, while there was only about

9% of migrant children’s mothers and fathers

respectively had a level of education that was college

and above (Dai et al., 2024). Another study also

conducted in 2024 quantified parents’ occupation.

Researchers divided parents’ occupation into five

levels (shown in Table 1). The final average score for

mothers’ occupation was 2.65, while the average

score for fathers’ occupation was 2.91 (Lu, 2024).

Immigrant children’s parents all have lower

occupation scores. Therefore, combining the low

education level and occupation, the overall SES of

migrant children is quite low compared to urban

children.

Table 1: 5 Levels of parents’ occupation.

Level Score

Farmer, herdsman, fisherman or retired, unemployed, or laid-off 1

Ordinary worker, elementary worker, or self-employed 2

General worker, service worker, or skilled worker 3

Doctor, lawyer, primary and secondary school teacher, or technical staff 4

Leading cadres of government agencies/institutions or professional and technical personnel 5

In addition, from the perspective of parental

involvement, based on the study conducted by Yiqi

Dai et al., among the participants, 14.75% of migrant

children’s parents were both away a lot, while only

6.13% urban children’s parents did so. Besides,

25.59% of parents of migrant children rarely give

parental guidance on learning to their children,

compared to only 12.42% of urban children (Dai et

al., 2024). As a result, compared to urban children,

migrant children generally receive less learning

guidance and companionship from their parents.

Combining these two-family factors, migrant

children's creativity will become lower.

4.2.2 Differences in School Factors

Migrant children usually have poor academic

performance than urban children (Wang et al., 2017;

Tang et al., 2024). According to the study conducted

by Yiqi Dai et al., among the participants, 60.48% of

urban children had good or excellent academic

performance, while only 49.88% of migrant children

had good or excellent academic performance (Wang

et al., 2017). Consequently, migrant children were

allocated to ordinary or low-quality schools (Tang et

al., 2024). Accordingly, migrant children will lag

behind in the two school factors mentioned above:

school physical environment and teachers.

Besides, as mentioned before, a large range of

migrant children have experienced bullying in school.

This, of course, destroys collaborative peer

atmosphere. High frequency of bullying among

migrant children can be attributed to two main

reasons: stigmatization and perception of

discrimination. Stigmatization is the cause from the

perspective of the bully. Stereotypical thinking

assumes that migrant population is the subject of

criminal incidents, which leads to rejection of migrant

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children by ordinary students. The perception of

discrimination is from the perspective of ones who

are bullied. After migrant children enter a big city, the

discrimination they experienced will make them feel

helpless and self-contemptuous. This can promote the

occurrence of school bullying as they cannot

communicate well and build good social relationships

with others (Ren & Cheng, 2021).

The school factors above would indeed lead to

low creativity level for migrant children.

4.2.3 Factors that Lead to Higher Creativity

of Migrant Children

In 4.1, the possibility that migrant status can

contribute to the development of creativity has been

discussed. There are three main possible factors.

Firstly, Chinese education culture is always

known as examination oriented (Pan et al., 2022).

Common sense dictates that the better the school, the

deeper the penetration of this culture. This type of

culture can easily seduce children to inertial thinking,

which would hinder creativity development (Dai et al.,

2024; Wang et al., 2017).

Besides, under this type of education, nowadays

Chinese students are undoubtedly under high

pressure, and most is from their parents. Chinese

parents always have high expectations to their

children and especially pay attention to exam scores.

The internal logic is actually simple: “in order to get

a good job, one has to get into a good university. In

order to get into a good university, one must do well

on the entrance examination of university. In order to

do well on the entrance examination, one must study

very hard, and for many years. Thus, scores of testing

determines their quality of life” (Ogura, 1987). This

also has a negative impact on creativity development.

5 DISCUSSION AND

SUGGESTION

5.1 Discussion

Generally, migrant children have a lower creativity

level than non-migrant (urban) children. Childhood is

a key stage for developing creativity, and since

children primarily spend it at home and school, this

study examines how these environments influence

creativity.

Family factors mainly involve SES and parents’

involvement. The higher the SES and the more

appropriate the parents’ involvement, the higher the

creativity level. School factors involve school

physical environment, teachers and peer relationship.

The higher the quality of these three factors, the

higher the creativity. Nevertheless, migrant children

generally lag urban children in all the factors

mentioned above.

However, migrant status can, to some extent,

benefit creativity. Possible reasons can be inertial

thinking and high pressure associated with the

favorable educational environment in which urban

children live.

5.2 Implications, Limitations of the

Present Study and Directions for

Future Research

As migrant and non-migrant status both have

potential benefits for creativity development, the best

way to boost children’s creativity is to combine the

benefits of both.

Firstly, relevant laws and regulations should be

improved. Migrant children and other children should

be given equal access to education and, especially, the

unfairness during kindergarten and high school

education (non-compulsory education) should be

fixed as far as possible. When their status gradually

becomes equal, it can also effectively alleviate the

problem of bullying. Besides, as family and school

play a big role in creativity development, schools

should work closely with families to create a

supportive environment that nurtures creativity. Since

it is quite difficult to change one’s SES dramatically

in a short period of time, the best way to create a

supportive environment is to ask parents to participate

more and in a proper way in the growth of children

and to ask teachers to create a more creative, warm

teaching atmosphere. Last but not the least, based on

4.2.3, a way to boost creativity is to get rid of

traditional teaching approach, which is strict and

examination-oriented, and encourage more

innovative teaching approaches. This suggestion has

also been proposed by Dai et al., 2024. By doing so,

the gap such as disparities in education between

migrant and non-migrant children can be minimized,

which can further boost children’s creativity.

However, this study still has some limitations.

Family and school are the main but not the only

factors that would affect creativity development.

Others like play and cultural background can also

affect creativity levels. As a result, future research

can focus on these different factors and compare the

magnitude of effects of all of them.

A Comparative Study on Creativity Between Migrant Children and Non-Migrant (Urban) Children

531

6 CONCLUSION

This study focuses on the comparison of migrant and

non-migrant children on the topic of creativity.

Although the general trend is that migrant children

have a lower creativity level due to family and school

factors, both migrant and non-migrant status have

their own benefits. Therefore, the benefits of both

should be combined to provide the child with an

optimal education. Society should provide both

groups of children with equal education assessment

and resources, eliminating discrimination to migrant

children. Besides, society as a whole, from family to

country, should do all it can to create an encouraging

environment for children to grow up in, rather than

the traditional test-oriented education type. In this

way, the gap between migrant and non-migrant

children, especially in the education field, can be

reduced. The reduction of inequality and the increase

of creative talent will not only boost children’s

creativity but also promote the whole society.

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