In search of the ‘best’ option: American private secondary education for upper-middle-class Chinese teenagers

Abstract

This article focuses on unpacking the processes of how a rapidly rising group of urban upper-middle-class Chinese families decide to send their only children to the United States on their own for private secondary education. The article analyzes the socio-historical background of such choice and lays out these families’ various paths to opting out of the neoliberal school-choice market in China and eyeing American private secondary education as the ‘best’ option. Based on in-depth interviews with 33 parents in several Chinese mega-cities, the author demonstrates that Chinese urban upper-middle-class families choose such a transnational educational choice as a silent exit from the anxiety-ridden Chinese education system. Situated in the socio-historical transformation of contemporary Chinese society, the reasons for exiting range from dissatisfaction with the political narrative to educational aspiration of a ‘well-rounded’ education and resistance against the test-oriented pedagogical practices at school. This ethnographic research provides a unique perspective to engage with works on elite education in a global context and enriches the theorization of the global middle classes.

Emotional Dimensions of Transnational Education: Parent–Child Relationships of the Chinese “Parachute Generation” in the United States

“…For families of different socioeconomic backgrounds in Asian societies, the "educational project" of children plays a salient role in shaping how families make decisions about and participate in the migration process. In the case of the "parachute generation," Chinese upper-middle-class families, just like their counterparts in other East Asian families, send their children abroad for education and consider it "the best option" (Tu, 2022). Those families make such a transnational educational choice as a silent exit from the anxiety-ridden Chinese education system.…”

“…Those families make such a transnational educational choice as a silent exit from the anxiety-ridden Chinese education system. Although teenage children are involved in the decision-making process, parents take the lead and choose to exit due to a broad spectrum of reasons, ranging from overall dissatisfaction with the political narrative of the Chinese state to the educational aspiration of a "well-rounded" education and resistance against the test-oriented pedagogical practices at school (Tu, 2022). Like other East Asian parents, they want to convert the family's economic capital into children's institutional, cultural and social capital.…”