Producing British education by Chinese parents: Fulfilling parenting responsibilities in WeChat |
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| Authors: | Xin Luo |
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| Institution: | Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, China |
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| Abstract: | Education and parenting are popular topics on social media. In China, it is now common practice for parents to discuss and share education-related information in WeChat, a premier Chinese social media app. In order to understand parents' educational aspirations in WeChat and the way parents fulfil their parenting responsibilities, this research used virtual ethnography to study a WeChat parents group named Little MBA. Focusing on parents' textual conversations and posts shared in the group, this article demonstrates how Chinese parents constructed their own image of British education to express their views on and aspirations for the education their children received in China. In Little MBA, three features of British education were constructed, including emphasis on character building, cultivation of entrepreneurship and influence of aristocratic education. In the process of presenting their version of British education, these parents were using Chinese notions like fuyang (cultivation with abundance) and qiongyang (cultivation with deprivation) to understand and reproduce the meaning of British education in their own context. Their constructs of British education were understood as a way to fulfil their parenting responsibilities transferred from the state. The ambiguous image of British education parents constructed, one that emphasised both traditional and neoliberal values, reflected the conflicting nature of parents' educational aspirations in contemporary Chinese society. |
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| Keywords: | British education Chinese parents parenting responsibilities WeChat |
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