Parenting strategies around children’s education in urban China, South Korea and Singapore: A comparative ethnographic study
This comparative ethnographic project addresses parents’ educational care work in Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore. The overall purpose of the project is to study the empirical realities of shifting norms and practices that shape parenting strategies around young children’s education in urban East Asia. In particular, the project will inquire how parenting strategies are entangled with notions of human capital accumulation and upward social mobility, and how they intersect with gender, class and generation. Ethnographic data will be obtained through interviews, observations, respondents’ diaries, and auto-photography. The timetable for the project is three years. The research team consists of three members, who have previously specialized in family relations in East Asia. The project will be of significance in three major ways: 1) It will generate knowledge about parenting practices around young children’s education, and how parents negotiate the expectations implied by state ideologies on human capital, as well as education systems. 2) It will contribute to much needed comparative analysis within Asia, allowing for contextual understandings of parenting arrangements around children’s education which go beyond ’Asian values’ and ‘Confucian tradition’. 3) It will contribute to developing qualitative comparative methodologies.
Final report
The project is a comparative ethnographic study of parents' educational care work in urban China, South Korea and Singapore. These three countries are generally top performers in international student assessment surveys and school rankings, which is often perceived to be the result of competitive education systems and a distinct 'Asian' parenting culture. The aim of the project has been to use qualitative methods to study shifting norms and practices regarding parents’ involvement in young children's education. By highlighting both the material and moral and emotional dimensions of parents' educational care work, the results challenge simplistic interpretations of intensified parenting in East Asia and beyond. Fieldwork was conducted between 2018 and 2020 as well as in 2022. The empirical material consists of interviews with parents of children up to 12 years old, participant observations in settings and situations related to children's learning, including homework help sessions, homeschooling co-operatives, and in home environments, as well as a small number of photo diaries. The development of the research project has generally gone according to plan, with the exception of delays and practical obstacles due to the pandemic and a prolonged sick leave of the project team.
The three main findings and conclusions of the study are: Firstly, the study has contributed to empirically grounded knowledge about contemporary complex expectations of childhood and education and how parents navigate conflicting discourses of child well-being versus school achievement. This tension was particularly evident among middle and upper middle class parents. While these conflicting demands may give rise to uncertainty among parents, the study shows that parents actively navigate and renegotiate conflicting and complex demands and expectations. Cultivating a passion for learning, rather than ‘cramming’, was considered crucial among middle-class parents to balance and reconcile academic achievement and emotional well-being.
Second, the study has contributed to critical analyses of how modern parenting is stratified in terms of class and gender. While parental involvement in education is both stratified and stratifying, the notion that children are at risk and that responsible parenting is linked to the task of reducing these risks was widespread regardless of social class background. While theories of intensive parenthood are relevant to describe the current child-centered and labor-intensive approach to parenting, an important finding is that the norm of intensive parenthood is not exclusive to the middle-class. On the contrary, parents across class backgrounds, in particular mothers, invested substantial energy and emotions into securing their children’s educational performance as well as their well-being, although in different ways and often with different outcomes. As we have seen, despite limited resources, the educational work performed by low-income parents appears equally emotionally absorbing and time-consuming, despite the fact that they lack resources to enroll their children in private tuition centers, and often lack the know-how to coach their children through homework and in preparation for exams. Also, while low-income parents had lower expectations on their children’s academic performance, they all emphasized the importance of an education, and in many cases even more so than the middle- and upper middle-class parents, who tended to emphasize the importance of raising agile and creative children who can maneuver in a global and rapidly changing world.
Thirdly, the study has contributed to knowledge about how the moral imperative for children's education and excellence in East Asia must be understood in relation to the tension between two ongoing processes: on the one hand, descending familism, and on the other, individualism. Descending familism differs from classical (ascending) familism, where resources primarily flow from younger to older generations. Instead, descending familism is characterised by the flow of resources from older to younger generations as a result of an increased focus on children and the expectations associated with modern parenting (see Yan 2016). In China and Singapore as well as Korea, expectations about children's educational performance and parents' responsibility to support this task are accentuated by an overheated education market and fierce competition for grades and places.
The project has generated new research questions and topics. The findings point to a growing tension also globally between different discourses on childhood and learning, on the one hand an emerging discourse on the importance of holistic and value-based education, and on the other hand an old discourse on education in terms of standardised measurements and predictability. Both discourses, although seemingly contradictory, are reflected in new initiatives and strategies by leading actors in global education governance, including the OECD and UNESCO. Since 2015, the OECD's PISA survey includes data on students' well-being in relation to their educational outcomes; similarly, child well-being and health is a key priority of UNESCO's Strategy for Education since 2016. How parents, children and schools relate to and/or challenge these different discourses is a question that should be explored beyond East Asia, not least in light of increasing reports of mental health problems among children and young people.
The project team has disseminated the results through scientific articles, international and national conference presentations, popularisations and media participation. In addition to already published works, another three scientific articles and a book chapter are under production and will be completed in autumn 2023 and spring 2024 respectively. In the future, a monograph is planned where the results from the three field study sites are analysed and compared in their entirety. The project participants have actively disseminated the results at scientific conferences in Asia, Europe and North America. Collaboration outside of academica has mainly taken place in connection with fieldwork through a continuous exchange of experience with social workers and educators in Singapore.
The three main findings and conclusions of the study are: Firstly, the study has contributed to empirically grounded knowledge about contemporary complex expectations of childhood and education and how parents navigate conflicting discourses of child well-being versus school achievement. This tension was particularly evident among middle and upper middle class parents. While these conflicting demands may give rise to uncertainty among parents, the study shows that parents actively navigate and renegotiate conflicting and complex demands and expectations. Cultivating a passion for learning, rather than ‘cramming’, was considered crucial among middle-class parents to balance and reconcile academic achievement and emotional well-being.
Second, the study has contributed to critical analyses of how modern parenting is stratified in terms of class and gender. While parental involvement in education is both stratified and stratifying, the notion that children are at risk and that responsible parenting is linked to the task of reducing these risks was widespread regardless of social class background. While theories of intensive parenthood are relevant to describe the current child-centered and labor-intensive approach to parenting, an important finding is that the norm of intensive parenthood is not exclusive to the middle-class. On the contrary, parents across class backgrounds, in particular mothers, invested substantial energy and emotions into securing their children’s educational performance as well as their well-being, although in different ways and often with different outcomes. As we have seen, despite limited resources, the educational work performed by low-income parents appears equally emotionally absorbing and time-consuming, despite the fact that they lack resources to enroll their children in private tuition centers, and often lack the know-how to coach their children through homework and in preparation for exams. Also, while low-income parents had lower expectations on their children’s academic performance, they all emphasized the importance of an education, and in many cases even more so than the middle- and upper middle-class parents, who tended to emphasize the importance of raising agile and creative children who can maneuver in a global and rapidly changing world.
Thirdly, the study has contributed to knowledge about how the moral imperative for children's education and excellence in East Asia must be understood in relation to the tension between two ongoing processes: on the one hand, descending familism, and on the other, individualism. Descending familism differs from classical (ascending) familism, where resources primarily flow from younger to older generations. Instead, descending familism is characterised by the flow of resources from older to younger generations as a result of an increased focus on children and the expectations associated with modern parenting (see Yan 2016). In China and Singapore as well as Korea, expectations about children's educational performance and parents' responsibility to support this task are accentuated by an overheated education market and fierce competition for grades and places.
The project has generated new research questions and topics. The findings point to a growing tension also globally between different discourses on childhood and learning, on the one hand an emerging discourse on the importance of holistic and value-based education, and on the other hand an old discourse on education in terms of standardised measurements and predictability. Both discourses, although seemingly contradictory, are reflected in new initiatives and strategies by leading actors in global education governance, including the OECD and UNESCO. Since 2015, the OECD's PISA survey includes data on students' well-being in relation to their educational outcomes; similarly, child well-being and health is a key priority of UNESCO's Strategy for Education since 2016. How parents, children and schools relate to and/or challenge these different discourses is a question that should be explored beyond East Asia, not least in light of increasing reports of mental health problems among children and young people.
The project team has disseminated the results through scientific articles, international and national conference presentations, popularisations and media participation. In addition to already published works, another three scientific articles and a book chapter are under production and will be completed in autumn 2023 and spring 2024 respectively. In the future, a monograph is planned where the results from the three field study sites are analysed and compared in their entirety. The project participants have actively disseminated the results at scientific conferences in Asia, Europe and North America. Collaboration outside of academica has mainly taken place in connection with fieldwork through a continuous exchange of experience with social workers and educators in Singapore.