Ambiguous aspirations: Parenting strategies around young children’s education in urban South Korea and Singapore
(2020) Association for Asian Studies in Asia- Abstract
- South Korea and Singapore are widely recognized for their competitive education systems and for consistently topping international student assessment tests. They also share a ballooning private tuition industry, fueled by parents’ anxiety over their children’s academic achievements. This paper is based on a comparative ethnographic study on parenting strategies around young children’s (aged 4-12) education, and how these strategies intersect with class, gender and generation. Our findings indicate that there is a predominant assumption among parents that a child’s chances of succeeding in school and future professional life is directly dependent on addressing possible ’learning gaps’ in early childhood. Parents fear that their children... (More)
- South Korea and Singapore are widely recognized for their competitive education systems and for consistently topping international student assessment tests. They also share a ballooning private tuition industry, fueled by parents’ anxiety over their children’s academic achievements. This paper is based on a comparative ethnographic study on parenting strategies around young children’s (aged 4-12) education, and how these strategies intersect with class, gender and generation. Our findings indicate that there is a predominant assumption among parents that a child’s chances of succeeding in school and future professional life is directly dependent on addressing possible ’learning gaps’ in early childhood. Parents fear that their children will fall behind academically if these learning gaps are not addressed, and moreover, that the failure to perform academically would have a life-long negative impact on the child’s self-confidence. At the same time, this paper points to a more complex and ambivalent diversification of parental involvement in education, which can be conceptualized as a tension between the ambition to secure conventional career paths (academic achievements) versus the nurturing of the child’s own needs, interests and emotional well-being. We propose that parents’ attempts at balancing these seemingly paradoxical aspirations must be understood in relation to an expertise-based approach to parenting and a shifting perception of children, in which children are seen as vulnerable to all sorts of risks (cf Faircloth 2014). By comparing and contrasting South Korea and Singapore, this paper seeks to understand and contextualize urban middle-class parents’ ambiguous aspirations in relation to notions of risk, fear and responsible parenthood. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/0c378960-37c3-46bf-9243-95c439d422f2
- author
- Göransson, Kristina LU and Kang, Yoonhee
- organization
- publishing date
- 2020-09-01
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- conference name
- Association for Asian Studies in Asia
- conference location
- Kobe, Japan
- conference dates
- 2020-08-31 - 2020-09-04
- project
- Parenting strategies around children's education in urban China, South Korea and Singapore: A comparative ethnographic study
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 0c378960-37c3-46bf-9243-95c439d422f2
- date added to LUP
- 2022-03-17 15:16:16
- date last changed
- 2022-04-04 16:13:13
@misc{0c378960-37c3-46bf-9243-95c439d422f2,
abstract = {{South Korea and Singapore are widely recognized for their competitive education systems and for consistently topping international student assessment tests. They also share a ballooning private tuition industry, fueled by parents’ anxiety over their children’s academic achievements. This paper is based on a comparative ethnographic study on parenting strategies around young children’s (aged 4-12) education, and how these strategies intersect with class, gender and generation. Our findings indicate that there is a predominant assumption among parents that a child’s chances of succeeding in school and future professional life is directly dependent on addressing possible ’learning gaps’ in early childhood. Parents fear that their children will fall behind academically if these learning gaps are not addressed, and moreover, that the failure to perform academically would have a life-long negative impact on the child’s self-confidence. At the same time, this paper points to a more complex and ambivalent diversification of parental involvement in education, which can be conceptualized as a tension between the ambition to secure conventional career paths (academic achievements) versus the nurturing of the child’s own needs, interests and emotional well-being. We propose that parents’ attempts at balancing these seemingly paradoxical aspirations must be understood in relation to an expertise-based approach to parenting and a shifting perception of children, in which children are seen as vulnerable to all sorts of risks (cf Faircloth 2014). By comparing and contrasting South Korea and Singapore, this paper seeks to understand and contextualize urban middle-class parents’ ambiguous aspirations in relation to notions of risk, fear and responsible parenthood.}},
author = {{Göransson, Kristina and Kang, Yoonhee}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{09}},
title = {{Ambiguous aspirations: Parenting strategies around young children’s education in urban South Korea and Singapore}},
year = {{2020}},
}