It depends on herself/himself. : Parental Involvement in Education regarding Children Education in a Chinese Township High School

Abstract: This thesis is the first qualitative study of parental involvement in education regarding students in one key township high school in an undeveloped small town in southern China. This thesis aims to examine parental expectations and strategies in the voices of parents. To achieve this goal, this thesis examines the social class of the interviewed parents while considering place. It explores the distinctions in the shared thoughts embodied in life stories as parents perceive or articulate their identities and interests with the parents’ lived experiences, particularly with schooling, occupational careers, and their place identities in cities, towns, and villages. Using concepts of cultural production and penetration, defined by Paul Willis, “penetration” pertains to parents’ insights into the use of education in reflection of parents’ embodied experience and social conditions, while “cultural production” refers to the outcome of collective parental practices and a meaning-making process regarding parental involvement in education. Oral history interviews were conducted with ten families (five fathers and five mothers). This research argues that parents can be divided into two groups based on the distinction of identities of interests in schooling, occupational career, and place of identity, with one group having long-term employment and the other having short-term jobs. Therefore, two sets of parental expectations are conceptualized through penetrations: onward mobility from the periphery to the center and upward mobility from a short-term to a long-term job. Finally, all parents produce the culture of “it depends on himself/ herself” regarding parental involvement in education and conduct four types of parental strategies considering parents’ social class and children’s grades parents perceive: position, trust, ambivalence, and distance.