Beyond school resources: Unraveling the urban–rural academic achievement gap in Mainland China

The Chinese government has been prioritizing the allocation of more school resources to rural schools to boost academic performance, but the urban–rural academic achievement gap still persists. By analyzing the data from PISA 2018 for China’s four economically developed provinces, this paper first reveals that family resources play a more pivotal role than school resources in accounting for the urban–rural achievement gap. Secondly, the effectiveness of resource utilization is not negligible, as it contributes to the urban–rural achievement disparity to a degree that even outweighs the impact of school resources. Moreover, as students’ academic achievement improves, the contribution of differences in resource utilization effectiveness to the urban–rural achievement gap becomes progressively greater. The results underscore the necessity of alleviating rural students’ disadvantage in family resources, and to integrate urban and rural education in terms of high-quality resources as well as to enhance rural schools’ effectiveness by strengthening teacher incentives and improving the quality of instruction.