Parenting, Education, and Social Mobility in Rural China: Cultivating dragons and phoenixes [Hardcover]

Introduction 1. Conceptual and Theoretical Framework 2. What does it mean to be rural? 3 . To walk out 4. It is up to them 5. Active rural parents hidden work: creating a good learning environment 6. Information network: Support of family and friends 7. Migration. Conclusion

Peggy A. Kong is an assistant professor in Comparative and International Education at Lehigh University, USA. Her research interests include educational inequality including rural education, gender issues and private tutoring.

Like many countries around the world, China has been implementing policies aimed at improving parent-school relationships. However, unlike many developed countries, the historical context of family-school relationships has been limited and parents typically do not participate in the school context. Until now, there has been little research conducted in rural China on parental involvement in their childrens education.

This book investigates the nature of parental involvement in primary childrens education in rural China by using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. It outlines the layered strategies of how rural parents are involved in their childrens schooling, showing that rural parents strongly desire educational success for their children and view education as a means to their children gaining social mobility. It demonstrates that few rural parents engage in visible forms of parental involvement in their childrens schools, such as attending parent-teacher meetings. Rather, they are more likely to engage strategies to support their childrens education which are largely invisible to schools. It adds to the growing body of parental involvement research that suggests that culture, location, and socio-economic status influence different forms of parental involvement, and highlights nuances in invisible forms of parental involvement.

Providing insights into how poor rurlã@