Parenting for Success: The Value of Children and Intensive Parenting in Post-Reform China

Gu, Xiaorong

doi:10.1007/s12187-020-09746-4

Cited by 21 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…In the current study, we adopt the theoretical perspective that gender is a social structure operating at the individual level to develop gendered selves, during social interactions to shape gendered expectations, and in institutional domains to regulate gender-stratifying resource distribution (Risman, 2004). We pay special attention to the life course of pre-adulthood; where, in post-reform China, adolescents’ academic achievement is relentlessly pursued, regardless of their gender (Fong, 2002; Gu, 2020). Synthesizing perspectives from gender studies, family research, and developmental psychology, we hypothesize that three mechanisms work in favor of adolescent girls’ achievement in the context of the one-child policy and the rapid socioeconomic transformations, relative to that of their male counterparts: (1) the equitable, or even more favorable, tangible and intangible family resources they enjoy in line with a revised parent–daughter social contract, (2) their strengths in non-cognitive skills, and (3) their superior achievement in early education.…”

Section: Theoretical Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do Chinese adolescent girls outperform boys in achievement tests?

Yeung

2021

Chinese Journal of Sociology

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The current study extends our understanding of the widely documented gender educational gap in favor of females and its contributing factors through a mixed-methods analysis of the Chinese case. We develop an analytical framework that incorporates three mechanisms—intergenerational social contract, non-cognitive skills, and cumulative (dis)advantage across the life course—to empirically assess gendered achievement patterns and their social mechanisms among Chinese adolescents. The Chinese Family Panel Studies data documented that adolescent girls have higher verbal and math achievements than boys, with the gap larger in verbal than in math scores. Three factors account for these gender gaps: (1) (grand)parents hold higher expectations for girls, monitor girls more closely, and invest in girls as much as in boys; (2) girls possess better non-cognitive skills; and (3) girls’ stronger performance in earlier years gives them an edge for later achievement. The in-depth interviews contextualize these statistical patterns in profound changes in families’ logic in supporting girls’ education and in reconfigured gender discourses about girls’ learning behavior. From the perspective of intergenerational contracts, in the context of low fertility, daughters have become cherished as long-term family members at the receiving end of intensive investment, particularly as educational competition intensifies in post-reform China. Moreover, a gender discourse, engaged by family members and teachers, about girls’ superior non-cognitive skills such as compliance and self-discipline exerts a powerful influence as a self-fulfilling prophecy with regards to girls’ achievement. The findings underscore the need to account for both cultural and policy contexts, and nuanced gender work at home and in school in understanding the gender-gap reversal in contemporary China.

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Section: Theoretical Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do Chinese adolescent girls outperform boys in achievement tests?

Yeung

2021

Chinese Journal of Sociology

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“…Moreover, as alluded, underlying the intense social anxieties over professional women's 'reproductive disruption' is a eugenics concern in the state's decadeslong biopolitics via family planning policies. In a low fertility and rapidly developing society with a dominant mobility-driven parenting regime that sees the child as a site of intensive investment for future success (Gu 2020), competition starts with pregnancy and the concerted effort in producing a genetically healthy and smart infant.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For one thing, it engenders a culture of eugenics by framing population and fertility control as a project to modernize China in a quality-quantity trade-off, which aims to 'create a modern, planned population' with the well-educated, well-dressed, healthy, 'quality' urban child as the poster image (Greenhalgh 2003), in contrast with the poor, uneducated and unplanned rural child image. This culture of eugenics, as will be elaborated on, built on a powerful biomedical discourse under the aura of science, shapes an obsession with 'perfect' planned births and intensive parenting to raise successful children among urban families (Anagnost 1997;Gu 2020). For another, the state's anti-natalist policy, paradoxically, reinforces the normative expectation of fertility (versus infertility) among Chinese people.…”

Section: Contextualizing Reproductive Anxieties In Contemporary Chinamentioning

confidence: 98%

‘You are not Young Anymore!’: Gender, Age and the Politics of Reproduction in Post-reform China

2021

ABR

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Based on in-depth interview data and popular culture texts, the current study has explored the politics of reproduction revolving around women's age in contemporary China. Conceptualizing reproduction as a site of contestation and politics between different, and often contradictory, sets of discourses and power structures, I pursue a feminist and social constructivist analysis of the politics of reproduction in the lives of a group of urban professional women who are yet to enter motherhood at their late 20s and 30s. I engage with Inhorn's (2009) concept of 'disrupted reproduction' to highlight the politically, morally and emotionally charged contestations in the 'problematized' reproductive lives of these women. I unveil how Chinese professional women beyond their 'reproductive prime' are discursively constructed as 'disrupters', who fail their femininity test tied to a motherhood identity within the family context, challenge the 'natural' biological law regulating their reproductive bodies, and face a doomed reproductive future fraught with medical, physical and emotional traumas which ART cannot alleviate. Such a discourse renders invisible the structural causes of problems and challenges professional women face in negotiating parenthood, social norms and selfhood, which systematically put them under pervasive social surveillance and discipline.

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“…In postreform China, parents feel obliged to cultivate their child as an “emotionally priceless” and “educationally achieving” figure (Gu, 2021, p. 555). Due to the intense competition among the youth of today, CBS parents are more motivated to place a premium on educational success (Chen, 2018), which actually becomes disadvantageous for the children’s academic performance and causes more conflicts (Yu et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

(In)congruence in child–mother relationships and depressive symptoms in cross-boundary families.

Bu¹,

Liu²,

Qu³

et al. 2023

Journal of Family Psychology

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A large number of school-aged children traveling between Mainland China and Hong Kong every day to attend school are known as cross-boundary students (跨境學童). Daily cross-boundary schooling is likely to be a constant challenge for cross-boundary students and their families, putting them at great risk of mental health problems (e.g., depression). Nevertheless, intergenerational relationships may be positive contributors to their adaptation. Guided by the interdependence theory and the operations triad model, this study employed dyadic response surface analysis to take into account linear and curvilinear associations between child–mother relationships and their depressive symptoms. The cross-sectional results based on 187 child–mother dyads showed that when children and mothers reported relatively high levels of closeness and relatively low levels of conflict, they reported fewer depressive symptoms. The extreme closeness between children and their mothers posed particular risks to mothers, increasing maternal depressive symptoms. When children and mothers reported varying levels of closeness and conflict, they displayed greater depressive symptoms. One exception was that no significant association was observed between incongruence in closeness and children’s depressive symptoms. Family-based interventions should be considered for promoting optimal child–mother combinations.

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Parenting for Success: The Value of Children and Intensive Parenting in Post-Reform China

Cited by 21 publications

References 43 publications

Why do Chinese adolescent girls outperform boys in achievement tests?

Why do Chinese adolescent girls outperform boys in achievement tests?

‘You are not Young Anymore!’: Gender, Age and the Politics of Reproduction in Post-reform China

(In)congruence in child–mother relationships and depressive symptoms in cross-boundary families.

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