Producing British education by Chinese parents: Fulfilling parenting responsibilities in WeChat

Abstract

Education and parenting are popular topics on social media. In China, it is now common practice for parents to discuss and share education-related information in WeChat, a premier Chinese social media app. In order to understand parents' educational aspirations in WeChat and the way parents fulfil their parenting responsibilities, this research used virtual ethnography to study a WeChat parents group named Little MBA. Focusing on parents' textual conversations and posts shared in the group, this article demonstrates how Chinese parents constructed their own image of British education to express their views on and aspirations for the education their children received in China. In Little MBA, three features of British education were constructed, including emphasis on character building, cultivation of entrepreneurship and influence of aristocratic education. In the process of presenting their version of British education, these parents were using Chinese notions like fuyang (cultivation with abundance) and qiongyang (cultivation with deprivation) to understand and reproduce the meaning of British education in their own context. Their constructs of British education were understood as a way to fulfil their parenting responsibilities transferred from the state. The ambiguous image of British

Will the Harry Potter Magic Last? Cultural Commodification and Its Contradictions in the Franchising of British Private Schools in China

“…The franchising and commercialization of British school education might also result in what Goldman termed "a dissolving influence" on British culture itself. In China's international school market, what is viewed as "British-style" is the outcome of multiple phases of selection and repackaging of commercially useful cultural objects that appeal to the local consumers' limited and perhaps stereotypical conceptions of the British education (Luo, 2022). When "copies" of schools can be easily made and satisfying market demands becomes the primary objective, the singularity and authenticity of the original educational traditions could turn into "a matter of indifference," as in the case of a work of art produced en masse (Goldman, 1992, p. 30).…”

“…The intensity of market growth is closely related to Chinese middle-class families' aspiration for international education and in particular the cultural appeal of British education in Chinese society. For example, Luo's (2022) study of Chinese parents' construction of British education revealed their common and idealized perceptions of British education as expressed by class-bounded concepts such as character building, aristocratic education, and entrepreneurship.…”

“…These schools have entered China's K-12 school sector largely through a franchise model, whereby a UK-based private school licenses the use of its brand name and elements of its curriculum and teaching to a Chinese partner in charge of the branch campus's operation in China. The prestigious school brands and the UK's educational quality and reputation are frequently employed as the main attractions of British-style international schools in China's education market (Bunnell et al, 2020;Luo, 2022). In recent years, such schools have seen unprecedented growth in number and gained widespread popularity among affluent and aspiring Chinese families through what might be called a "Harry Potter effect."…”