Parental involvement and college access : comparing rural, migrant, and urban parents in mainland China

Abstract

After the expansion of college enrollment, the challenges facing policy makers and educational researchers in China now turns from “who goes to university” into “who goes to which university and how”. Although substantial studies have been conducted to explain this phenomenon, the intermediate function of parental involvement in the relationship between family background and education outcomes has not been clearly explored in the existing literature so far. In order to find out the patterns among rural, migrant, and urban parents’ involvement in their children’s college access and the advantages and disadvantages in college access produced by these patterns, a combination of qualitative comparative approach and hermeneutic methodology was conducted in Jiangxi province in Middle China. Based on the volume and quality of family capital and whether the capital is correspondent with educational field, three types of parental involvement emerged from the 20 cases. Parents with higher family capital and who are familiar with the rules usually adopted a child rearing logic of comprehensive concerted cultivation and most of these families come from urban middle class. Parents with lower family capital but who are familiar with the rules tended to show a type of constrained concerted cultivation, and most of these parents come from urban working-class families and migrant families. While for the parents with lower family capital and unfamiliarity with the rules, their involvement logic shows a type of natural growth, while these parents usually come from rural working-class families. Although all the parents want best for their children, their capabilities to make their dreams come true are totally different and highly influenced by the hardware factors (family capitals) and software factors (know how the system works). The evidence in this study does suggest that there are social class differences in parents’ educational desire and perceptions of their roles, and thus different in the specific parental involvement such as intervention in institutions, approaching resources, parent-child interactions, schooling guidance, psychological counselling, and activities participation throughout the three stages of college access. Data show that the equitable access to college is not available for every family. This study points to an important gap as the current literature ignored: the inter-institutional linkages between family background and school life play an intersectional role in parental involvement from different families. Parents who engaged in the practice of comprehensive concerted cultivation and constrained concerted cultivation are more likely to show an interconnectedness between family and school, and these parents show a sense of accomplishment and confidence, while parents engaged in the practice of natural growth emerge a separation from family and school, and they tend to emerge a sense of constraint and distance, especially when intervening with social institutions. What is worse, the remaining impacts of the rural-urban dual structure is everywhere and deeply influence parents’ values and strategies.