Chinese parental academic socialization prior to college entrance examination: insights from urban and rural areas

ABSTRACT

Parents’ transmission of reasons for academic achievement, i.e. parental academic socialization, plays an important role in their children's motivation and learning. This study explores Chinese parental academic socialization during the critical period of preparing for getting into colleges through interviews with 38 dyads of parents and their adolescent children from one rural area and one urban area. Results indicated congruity and divergence between urban–rural parents, reflecting rapid modernization and the coexistence of traditional cultural ideologies. Chinese parents generally expected good examination performance and accordingly college admission. They transmitted the messages that entering colleges can elevate social status, repay parents’ sacrifices and bring in more future learning opportunities. In spite of the pivotal examination, some parents expected their children to master skills and enjoy learning itself, who even tried to mitigate or buffer the negative impacts of crucial examinations. The rural parents were more concerned about upward social mobility and offsetting family economic restrain through education than the urban parents, whereas the urban parents placed higher values on enjoying learning itself than the rural parents. The urban–rural differences in parental academic socialization reflect the dramatic sociocultural changes in China in the passing decades.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental academic socialization
• college entrance examination
• academic motivation
• Chinese

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the comments of Na Luo and Luyao Liang on an earlier version of this article. This study is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).