Drawing on a 2022 survey of home education of junior secondary school students in China's eight provincial administrative regions, this study seeks to examine the chief factors influencing the generation of education anxiety in Chinese middle-class parents using a moderated mediation model. Research findings include that: (1) education anxiety is…

There is increasing concern regarding widespread educational anxiety in China, driven by significant investments of money, time, and effort made by parents in their children's education. This study investigates the phenomenon of rising parentocracy in China and its relations to educational anxiety among middle-class parents, based on in-depth…

In recent years, Innovative Schools in Dali have received increasing coverage in Chinese social media and have also attracted middle-class parents from cities, as viable bottom-up educational initiatives. This paper explores the rationales for Chinese middle-class parents' choice of Innovative Schools in Dali. Analysis of data from online…

This study aims to explore the factors that influence Asian student mobility using a life planning model, which focuses on students' lifelong planning and restricting factors in decision-making. As a result of macro data analysis of student mobility from six Asian source countries to eight major destinations from 1999 to 2017, the income gap…

This study uses survey data from 12,548 parents in seven major cities in mainland China, including 5,850 middle-class parents. Through differential analysis, path analysis, and quantile regression, it examines the relationships between meritocratic educational beliefs, achievement expectation gaps, and educational anxiety. The findings reveal that…

This study examines the complex nature of educational anxiety among middle-class parents in contemporary China, particularly in the context of the "Double Reduction" policy. Through in-depth interviews with sixteen middle-class parents in Nanjing, our research explores how socio-economic changes, policy impacts, and parental responses…

This paper explores how middle-class mothers' involvement in and how the meanings of a public school choice are shaped by the class differences in cultural capital and economic capital between the mother and father within one family. It examines the practices of choosing a public school that shapes a middle-class mother, rather than the school…

Despite an extensive body of literature that has examined the role of museums in cultural reproduction and public education, most of the current discussion is western-centred. Whilst explorations of museum education in developing countries often focus on the institution, the agency perspective regarding how different social groups negotiate access…

This study examined the distribution of language expansion in parent-child (preschool aged) mealtime conversations in 30 Chinese middle-class families. The conversations were categorised into four types: "contextualised & conflicted," "contextualised & non-conflicted," "decontextualised & conflicted," and…

Parental involvement in children's education often prescribes strategies to align with educational authority. Prevailing perspectives view compliance with educational authority as subjection and its rejection as a form of autonomy. However, there is autonomous parental involvement that accepts educational authority but results in opposite…

Using the 2015 data of the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), the relationship between family socioeconomic background, parent involvement, and shadow education participation was explored through structural equations. The results showed that: parent involvement strengthened shadow education participation; parent involvement played a part in the…

School choice policy in China aims to achieve educational equity by limiting school choice. Synchronous Admission Reform (SAR hereafter) is a recent school choice reform in China, which continues to limit parents' autonomy and strengthen the equal distribution of school resources. This study explores Chinese middle-class parents' (n = 21) justice…

This article explores the intersecting desires and anxieties of Chinese middle-class families and students in their pursuit of studying abroad in the United States. Through the qualitative analysis of narratives from students and interview data, the findings reveal that the decision for studying in the U.S. is deeply intertwines with anxieties…

This study explores the complex emotional landscape of Chinese middle-class parents in educational investment, focusing on the paradoxical interplay of confidence and anxiety. Through in-depth interviews with 16 parents in Nanjing, we employed Bourdieu's concepts of illusio and 'capital' to examine how personal emotions, family resources, and…

Parents' happiness orientation has garnered early attention in school choice studies but has not been cautiously examined. Drawing on Aristotle's framework of Eudaimonia and Hedonia, along with Ahmed's concept of the happiness promise, this study transcends a perspec­tive of preference and examines how parents understand and pursue happiness in…