Tiger Parenting via Shadow Education: Strategies for China’s Middle-Class Families

Abstract

Based on a mixed-methods study in Shanghai, this paper examines tiger parenting through a socio-economic lens to show the roles of shadow education in achieving parental goals. The study shows that tiger parenting is most evident in middle-class families. In order to transmit or increase social advantages intergenerationally, they use tutoring to prepare children for successful academic trajectories. The strategy is driven by anxieties related to social status in the rapidly-changing risk economy. Expansion of shadow education has provided parents with new means to increase family cultural capital which not only facilitates school performance but also reinforces class dispositions.