School of Education
Research papers from the School of Education
Roehampton University
Year 
British-Chinese pupils’ and parents’
constructions of the value of education
Becky Francis
Roehampton University, [email protected]
This paper is posted at Roehampton Research Papers.
http://rrp.roehampton.ac.uk/edupapers/3
British-Chinese pupils’ and parents’ constructions of the value of
education.
British Educational Research Journal, (2005) 31 (1) 89-108.
Dr Becky Francis & Dr Louise Archer
Institute for Policy Studies in Education
London Metropolitan University
166-220 Holloway Rd
London N7 8DB
e-mail: [email protected]
British-Chinese pupils’ and parents’ constructions of the value of education.
Abstract:
The high achievement of British-Chinese pupils in the British education system is established in the official literature,
but few studies have asked British-Chinese pupils or parents about the factors contributing to their success. This
paper explores value of education as a possible contributory aspect. It investigates the extent to which British-Chinese
pupils and their parents value education, and the rationale behind their constructions in this regard. Cultural issues in
the transmission of values are also explored. The findings demonstrate that British-Chinese pupils and their parents
place an extremely high value on education, irrespective of social class and gender. However, pupils and parents do
not necessarily provide the same explanations for this value. There is evidence, though, that the discourse of ‘value
of education’ is mobilised as part of a cultural construction of racialised boundaries relating to the diasporic habitus
of the Chinese in Britain. The paper discusses the benefits, costs and consequences for Chinese parents and pupils
of their elevation and prioritisation of education.
British-Chinese pupils’ and parents’ constructions of the value of education.
Introduction
British-Chinese pupils stand out prominently as high achievers within the British education system (Pang, 1999; DfEE,
2001). However, whereas the perceptions and experiences of education among various other groups of minority ethnic
pupils in Britain have been explored to some extent in qualitative studies (eg. Mirza, 1992; Basit, 1997; Sewell, 1996;
Fitzgerald et al., 2000; Archer 2003), Chinese experiences of British education, and the possible reasons for (and
costs of) their success, have rarely been examined. This paper seeks to explore the extent to which Chinese pupils
and parents construct education as valuable, and their reasoning, in an endeavour to shed some light on Chinese
pupils’ achievement.
British-Chinese and British-Indian pupils outperform children from other ethnic groups in British compulsory education
(DfEE, 2001). Further, over 90% of British-Chinese students continue into full-time post-compulsory education (Owen,
1994), and they are proportionally more likely than any other ethnic group in Britain to enter higher education
(Gillborn & Gipps, 1996). This latter achievement represents a rapid change, as, writing in the 1980s, Taylor (1987)
found that progression to higher education was relatively rare among the Chinese community in Britain. This shift
illustrates the swift progression of British-born Chinese pupils in terms of educational achievement. Moreover, while
concerns about ‘boys’ underachievement’ remain an ongoing theme in the academic and popular press (Epstein et al.,
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1998; Francis, 2000), figures show that British-Chinese boys (as well as British-Indian boys) continue to match the
educational performance of their female counterparts (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996) 1.
Yet despite this educational success, the Chinese community has rarely attracted the attention of researchers in
education, and where it has, it is arguable that the behaviour and performance of Chinese and British-Chinese people
have been conceptualised stereotypically. For example, according to Parker (2000) the British-Chinese community has
been hailed as an economic ‘success story’ by Anglo researchers, who have glossed over difficulties and inequalities.
These latter have not been negligible: research has shown that the Chinese as a group face both discrimination and
problems accessing public and social services (Chau & Yu, 2001; Cheng & Heath, 1993). Researchers such as Wong
(1994), Parker (2000) and Chau & Yu (2000) argue that this simplistic positioning of the Chinese as an economic
success story is based on broader, ill-conceived stereotypes of the Chinese as collectivist, conformist, entrepreneurial,
deferent, and conforming to Confucian values, which ignore the specific British-Chinese construction of ethnic identity
(Parker, 2000). These perceptions seem to be reflected in some accounts of British-Chinese approaches to learning,
which suggest the latter to be unwholsomely deferent and conformist. Sham & Woodrow’s (1998; Woodrow & Sham,
2001) study, one of the few to have examined attitudes to education among British-Chinese pupils, asked pupils
about their preferred learning styles and perceptions of the educational environment. Their findings suggest that these
pupils may adopt different learning styles to their Anglo counterparts. They go on to suggest that British-Chinese
pupils are conformist, deferent, and that these characteristics may impede their ‘growth’ (development); yet little
evidence is presented to justify such claims. Particularly, the pupils were not observed in the classroom, raising the
possibility that British-Chinese pupils may seek to construct themselves differently in their questionnaire responses than
do their Anglo contemporaries. Verma et al. (1994) have shown how the dominance of the ‘compensatory’ perspective
in education (Siraj-Blatchford, 1993) has resulted in ethnic minority groups being viewed in deficit terms, irrespective of
their performance. However, Woodrow & Sham’s (2001) finding that British-Chinese pupils perceive education differently
to white pupils is interesting, and warrants further exploration.
There is substantial evidence that different ethnic groups place varying degrees of emphasis upon educational success
(eg. Phoenix, 1987; Reay, 1998; Basit, 1997), and it has been suggested that teachers and scholars have traditionally
been highly respected in the Chinese community (Taylor, 1987; Pang, 1999). Though an under-researched area,
Chinese parents’ emphasis on their children’s educational success is apparent from the stress placed on this issue in
their personal testimonies (ECOHP, 1994). That the majority of these testimonies were provided by parents from a
peasant background, who were themselves often not formally educated and sometimes illiterate, raises some particularly
interesting issues in relation to issues of value and achievement. Levels of education are often reproduced through
generations (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Walkerdine & Lucey, 1989) but in the case of the British-Chinese this has
not been so. This paper seeks to investigate these issues further, exploring the extent to which British-Chinese pupils
and their parents view education as important and their rationales, and any differences in opinion between the parent
and pupil groups.
Methods
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The data is drawn from an ESRC-funded study 2 exploring British-Chinese constructions of gender, education and
achievement. As Ali (2003) so usefully discusses, there are problems with the identification of individuals in terms of
their ethnicity, which often involves creeping essentialism concerning ‘race’. In this research project, respondents were
involved on the basis that they identified as ‘Chinese’ (and/or ‘British-Chinese). Hence children self-defined their
ethnicity as Chinese – a few were half-Vietnamese, and some were ethnic Chinese whose families had lived in
Vietnam or other countries before emigrating to the UK (see Archer & Francis, forthcoming, for a discussion). Hence
when referring to ‘Chinese’ or ‘British-Chinese’ in this paper we refer to their personally-constructed ethnicity
The research was carried out in London, where almost half the total Chinese population in Britain are concentrated
(Chau & Yu, 2001). Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with three different groups: pupils of
Chinese origin, their parents, and their teachers. The data presented here is drawn from the two former groups.
PUPILS: 80 British-Chinese pupils (48 girls, 32 boys) from Years 10 and 11 (14-16 year olds) were interviewed.
Francis (eg 2000) and Archer’s (eg 2003) previous investigations of students’ constructions of gender and learning
also involved 14-16 year olds; so the involvement of this age-group in the proposed study enabled comparisons
between the constructions of British-Chinese pupils and pupils from other ethnic groups. Accessing a sample of this
size was extremely onerous, as, even in London, few schools contain high proportions of British-Chinese pupils.
Schools containing relatively large proportions (over 5%) of British-Chinese pupils were identified and asked to allow
access, although as the fieldwork continued schools with even a couple of Chinese pupils were approached. These
were mainly state schools but also included independent schools in the area. All Year 10 and 11 British-Chinese
pupils within these schools were invited to participate in the research (ensuring that pupils from different ability
groups were represented). Social class membership in the sample was highly diverse, representing a broad spread.
The following table provides a rough idea of the break-down of parental occupation for pupils respondents. The
occupations of both mothers and fathers have been included.
Table here
As one might expect, over a third of pupils’ parents are working in catering, with 25 stated as owning and/or
managing the restaurant or take-away. Pupils’ answers were often vague, and it may be that many more of the
parents described by pupils as ‘chefs’ or ‘working in’ catering actually own their own business. This, coupled with
the high numbers of mothers who were reported to be ‘at home’ (31), and the relatively high number of other
professionals (compared to other jobs outside catering), suggests a significant proportion of middle-class families in
the sample. However, as we discuss elsewhere, family education trajectories among Chinese in Britain and the
nature of takeaway ownership challenge traditional British understandings and applications of social class (Archer &
Francis, forthcoming a). For example, owners of businesses would traditionally be identified as middle class. Yet
such Chinese owners may differ significantly from traditional (white) middle-class profiles in terms of their levels of
education; working hours and ‘quality of life’; route to and means of business ownership; power and influence within
the host society, and so on. Hence we would argue that the circumstances of the many in the British-Chinese
community highlight the limitations of traditional categorisations of class, which they defy.
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Most of the pupils were second-generation Chinese with parents from the New Territories of Hong Kong or Hong
Kong Island. But there were some third-generation pupils whose parents had been born or grown up in Britain;
pupils from mainland China; and pupils whose parents hailed from ethnic Chinese communities living in other
countries. Pupils were questioned about their perceptions of gender issues, their educational preferences and
experiences, attitudes to learning, and their educational and occupational aspirations post-16.
PARENTS/GUARDIANS: 30 Chinese parents (nine fathers, and 21 mothers) were also interviewed about their views
of education and their expectations of their children concerning their educational achievement and future occupations.
The vast majority of Chinese in Britain speak Cantonese and/or Hakka (Hakka speakers can generally understand
and speak Cantonese). Many first generation Chinese speak little English. Hence the parent interviews were carried
out by our friend Sau-Wah Lam, who is fluent in Cantonese and Hakka as well as English, and to whom we are
extremely grateful. Use of a (British-born) Chinese interviewer may also have eased access to older respondents
(Ang-Lygate, 1996). Parents were recruited through British-Chinese pupil interviewees, and through personal contacts of
our British-Chinese advisers. They all originate from Hong Kong, most explain that they or their families came to
Britain ‘for a better life’, but they now represent a very diverse group in terms of their social class and education
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. Nearly all the respondents had worked in catering, although many of the mothers were now not working. Over
half the respondents came from families which owned a catering business/businesses, while others were less affluent
and worked for other people. Some spoke English fluently, having been raised (though none born) in Britain. Others
had little English at all. Similarly some had been educated in Britain, and some in HongKong. Many of the latter
group had had little, if any, education. Most had not received post-compulsory education, although two men had
been educated to degree level in Britain, one at a polytechnic and the other at a ‘traditional’ university.
A ‘standpoint perspective’ suggests that differences in terms of power and experience render the responses given by
ethnic minority respondents to white interviewers less valid than those given to interviewers of the same ethnicity
(see Archer, 2002, for a discussion). Undoubtedly the dominance of ‘ethnicity research’ by white researchers has
been of significance in the (re)production of oppressive theories that problematised minority groups. However, we
reject the identity politics approach that argues for a ‘match’ between researcher and respondents, due to the
evocation of duality and fixed identities that such a perspective entails. ‘Matching’ researcher and respondents does
not guarantee good research for two main reasons. Firstly, it is impossible to match all factors of identity (AngLygate [1996] describes how differences in social class, religion, location and so on can mean that respondents do
not ‘relate’ to interviewers despite shared ethnicity). Secondly such a ‘matching’ approach does not eradicate power
relations, which persist between researchers/participants despite shared ethnicity (Ang-Lygate, 1996). It is recognised
that shared ethnicity, gender and so on may sometimes facilitate access to certain groups (Ang-Lygate, 1996), and
can engender trust and a willingness to discuss certain issues (Archer, 2002). Yet conversely there is a concern that
researchers from similar social positions as their respondents might conflate experiences or distort responses in order
to fit their own experiences (Reay, 1996). Archer (2002) details how interactions of gender and ‘race’ between the
interviewer and respondents are not experienced in unitary or predictable ways. Therefore it is argued here that the
conduct of the interviews by white researchers is not necessarily more problematic than by Chinese researchers. The
researchers do, however, recognise the power relations and potential effects involved, and have therefore tried to be
sensitive to these issues in the research (Phoenix, 1994; Reay, 1996). We had ongoing consultation with three
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British-Chinese advisers during the design, fieldwork and analysis stages of the project in order to reflect on
potential cultural differences in interpretation of meaning during the project.
Pseudonyms have been used for all schools and pupils to ensure anonymity (pupil pseudonyms are English, Chinese
or Vietnamese as appropriate to the original name given). Interviews were audio-recorded and fully transcribed, and
processed via the NVivo package. A social constructionist perspective has been applied to the data, the qualitative
analysis of which involved content analysis and analysis of discourse (Burman and Parker, 1993; Francis, 1999). In
order to ensure that readers of the research findings can ascertain the extent to which particular expressions among
the pupils are representative of the total sample, counting has been undertaken (Silverman, 1993) so that figures
can be used to delineate the proportions giving particular responses.
British-Chinese pupils’ perceptions of the value of education
The British-Chinese pupils’ response to our question ‘Is education important?’ was universal. All the 80 pupils said
that it is, providing a resounding indication of British-Chinese endorsement. This is not, however, to suggest that the
pupils were unquestioning in this appraisal (For example, Margaret qualifies her response somewhat, saying “Yes, but
there are subjects that I sort of say to myself, when am I going to need this?”). Of the 80 pupils, over threequarters (63) constructed education in terms of credentials for employment when explaining why it is important. The
following explanations are typical:
Because when you grow up or you look at like your test results and stuff, and [if] you haven’t got
like the right test results then you might not get a job. (Mei Yee, F, Albert Square School)
Yes I think it’s very important, if you want to get a good job you need to have qualifications. (MaiLai,
F, Beale High)
When explaining the importance of education ‘the future’ was mentioned by many of the pupils, becoming something
of a motif in the data. For example, LaiFong (F, Albert Square) observes that education is very important “cos it
builds your life really. You need to have education to have a good future.” Helen (F, Beale High) explains, “Because
I was brought up, like my parents told me at an early age that education is important for your future. So I kind of
yeah, it’s important to me.” The phrase ‘the future’ certainly occurred more frequently than in similar interviews with
students of the same age-group from diverse ethnic groups (Francis, 1999b), suggesting that perhaps it is a
particularly British-Chinese expression or preoccupation. Pang (1999) lists ‘future orientation’ (as well as ‘hard work’) as
one of the ‘particular characteristics’ displayed by the Chinese as a group. Some respondents were quite specific in
their articulation that if you work hard now you will reap the benefits in the future, demonstrating a willingness to
defer pleasure in the present in order to ensure rewards later in life:
Because like you know, you think about it, you know, the people who actually make it without
education is very low. The people do make it with education. So you know, it’s better to work hard
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now then relax when you’re older. Rather than to relax now and work hard when you’re older. (Nick,
M, Albert Square School)
School first, life later! (Amy, F, Salter School for Girls)
This deferment of pleasure is reminiscent attitude of the white, academic ‘ear ‘oles’ in Willis’ Learning to Labour
(1977), and given that the British-Chinese as a group are high-achieving in the British education system, it may be
more than a coincidence that the two groups share this ethos.
It is important to note that educational instrumentalism is directly espoused and perpetuated by government policy
(Archer et al, 2003), and in this sense the respondents’ apparently credentialist position simply reflects a dominant
model. The frequency of the British-Chinese pupils’ explanation that education is important because it ensures a ‘good
job’ is not so very different from other ethnic groups: we found that working-class respondents from diverse ethnic
backgrounds all valued education as a route to ‘better’ jobs, irrespective of whether or not they planned to take up
post-compulsory education (Francis, 1999b; Archer et al, 2003). However, the British-Chinese pupils were more
consistent in this instrumentalism, and gave remarkably few alternative explanations. Woodrow and Sham (2001) found
British Chinese pupils wanted to study subjects that would secure them good jobs, providing some support for our
findings. Of the 80 responses to our question about the importance of education there were only a handful of
alternative explanations, and often the pupils concerned mentioned the point about ‘a good job’ as well. The
alternative explanations for the importance of education included learning about things to increase one’s knowledge;
parents telling one that education is important; and making yourself clever/avoiding being stupid.
Like pupils from other ethnic groups, the British-Chinese students constructed educational qualifications as
unproblematically ensuring passage to a ‘good job’ via a discourse of meritocracy (Francis, 1999b). Again, there was
little articulated recognition of the impact of issues such as racism and cultural constructions when discussing this
apparently automatic relationship between educational qualifications and future occupation (see Francis, 1999b).
(Although these issues did occasionally arise later in the interviews when discussing the impact of being Chinese on
their lives). David (M, Bridge Street) vividly illustrates use of the discourse of educational meritocracy when he
explains,
Well, if you get a good education, you’ll get a good job, if you get a good education you might have
a good life [...]. Just like a ladder. Even if you have the first step there, you can’t go on to the
second, so if it’s by the bottom already, the bottom step, I mean … step of the ladder, that’s why I
think education’s important.
Andrew (M, Walford School) affirms, “It’s like… I get crap education, like I’d be working like Burger King, like good
education I’d be like a doctor or something, you know. And get more money and stuff.” Hence the credentialist
formula of ‘good education = good job’ was applied with somewhat naïve simplicity, given findings by Cheng and
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Heath (1993) and others regarding the structural discrimination and exclusion which affects the Chinese as a group in
Britain.
There was a noticeable lack of pupils who argued that education is beneficial for intrinsic reasons. Indeed, many of
the British-Chinese pupils were quite specific about the material benefits that they believed a good job will bring.
References to ‘lots of money’ or ‘a nice house’ were common. Perhaps the notion of working hard in the present to
reap material benefits in ‘the future’ might to some extent reflect an immigrant perspective expressed by their parents.
Indeed, some of the pupil data, coupled with popular views of Chinese parents as disciplinarian (eg. Sham and
Woodrow, 1998), could lead to the assumption that Chinese pupils would hold the same values and produce the
same answers as their parents concerning the importance of education. For example, in response to our question
about this, four pupils (all girls) simply replied that they value it because their parents say they should. And other
pupils variously discussed their parents’ views and direction as important, either complaining of the pressure they were
under, or articulating appreciation for their parents’ advice and support. Alice’s (F, Slater School for Girls, age)
explanation about her approach to schoolwork is not untypical: “I have to work hard, because of my mum make me,
makes sure I do well. I do everything that I can, if I can’t then I try anyway”.
Chinese parents’ perceptions of the value of education
In fact, the explanations parents gave about the importance of education were quite different to those of their
offspring. Like the British-Chinese pupils, all the parents said that education is important; thus lending further evidence
to the suggestion that the Chinese as a group tend to value education highly. Indeed, some seemed flummoxed, or
almost shocked at our question ‘Do you think that education’s important?’ For example, Hing replies,
H: it is important, why not?
I: why?
H: education’s not important? Of course it’s important! Education at home and at school is very important.
I: why do you think that is?
H: why? If you don’t teach him then how will he succeed?
Likewise, the importance of education was so taken-for-granted for SauChing that she had to search for an
explanation:
K: it’s very important
I: why do you think it is?
K: huh? Why is it important? Because…you can understand a lot of stuff, because I’ve not been brought up with a
good education so we’ll try to do anything to give them [children] a good education.
Another father, Aron, positions education as absolutely essential to humanity – without it, we are like animals:
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Education, because I think for instance animals, like humans, are living things and humans are cleverer
than animals because they’re educated. If you don’t have education then you are like a stray dog, a wild
dog, no, no…
Aron’s example is particularly poignant given that he is not educated to a high level himself. His equation of
education with humanity (and lack of education with bestiality) evokes the psychic implications of the high value
placed on education for those who lack it. Like KitMan, above, Aron goes on to stress how his own lack of
education has heightened his value of it: “I’m the first generation in England, I came in 1959, I’ve been here fortyodd years, I didn’t have much opportunity to study, not a good education so I think education is very important.”
WingShan’s explanation of differences between her education and that of her children’s is a particularly vivid reminder
of some of the issues at stake, and reminds us how ‘cultural’ discourses around education are shaped by and
formulated within socially and historically-specific contexts:
In China when it was the cultural revolution all the schools were closed down, I couldn’t study. We all
went up the mountains to settle, there was no chance to be educated, but now you can study and go to
university and study whatever you want.
Even some of those parents who had largely been raised in Britain talked of their education as limited due to the
economic situation of their immigrant families. For Amanda the issue of economic constraint was compounded by
gender discourse. She explains that her parents did not stress the importance of her education. For them, being a
“good daughter” meant “come home and do your chores or help with the housework or help in the shop” (see also
Sham and Woodrow, 1998). She reflects that, “nowadays it’s more like we, as a family, or like the mum and dad,
we encourage them [children], we give them time, we drill into them ‘education is important, please do your
homework’ blah, blah, blah”. And of her son she adds, “yes well he’s got no other responsibilities, apart from doing
his homework, you know (laughs) he’s got no others but for us you know we would have to do a lot of other
things when we got home from school”, elaborating how she had to help out at the take-away after school. This
illustrates how the context of ‘choice’ (see, for instance, Beck, 1992) is structurally located: apparently ‘free’ individual
choice is actually constrained by structures such as those pertaining to social class or economic circumstance, gender
and ‘race’. HongWah’s (M) reflections on ‘then and now’ were similar to those of Amanda. He observes, “It’s very
different now, I mean in our days we had to help out in the shop, you know, with the father’s business and that,
doing part time jobs but…our daughters’ generation, most of them don’t even seem to help out”.
This constructed value of education for children, set against their own contexts of being deprived of education, and
the wish to provide their children with educational opportunities they never had, featured strongly in many of the
parent interviews. Their transcripts are in places heavy with loss, with hardships evoked by understated hints. TszShun
(F) explains that “if you’re not educated then the future’s very difficult, it’s very difficult to survive in this society if
you haven’t got a good education. Like in the past we had no choice….in Hong Kong.” Parents never dwelt on the
hardships in the Hong Kong New Territories that had forced them to seek ‘better lives’ in Britain (see Parker, 1998,
for discussion), nor the struggle for survival in an unfamiliar and often hostile nation, and the gruelling hardwork that
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this survival had entailed (Parker, 1998). Yet these experiences were used by parents as examples against which
they juxtaposed their aspirations for their children’s education. So the lack of education of some of the parents did
not in anyway decrease their determination for their children to be educated. As Bourdieu (1986) and Bourdieu and
Passeron (1977) have discussed, levels of educational participation are often reproduced through generations, hence
reproducing inequalities and contributing to the perpetuation of social-class boundaries. Yet the Chinese parents were
passionately committed to providing their children with what they had lacked. Perhaps this is indicative of a general
high valuing of education among the Chinese, as well as of a migrant outlook (they had, after all, demonstrably
been prepared to endure the hardships of moving country and usually working in the catering trade in order to build
a better life for themselves and their families).
Indeed, some of the parents who themselves worked in the catering trade, either in restaurants or in takeaways,
articulated a desire to protect their children from this lifestyle. As PuiKeung says of catering work, “it’s a tough
occupation isn’t it? You work unsociable hours, long hours, you don’t have a social life”. Hence ShunHei observes,
“I’m working in the kitchen; do I expect my son to work in the kitchen? Of course not. […] No parent would want
their child to do this job. Obviously unless that was the last resort.” There is a stereotypical view, to some extent
supported in our data, that Chinese parents only want their children to aspire to particular, professional jobs (‘doctor,
lawyer or accountant’, see Francis & Archer, forthcoming). Westerners tend to perceive this tendency as being solely
about status. Of course, the precarious economic and social position of first-generation Chinese in Britain means that
‘known’ and ‘safe routes’ to success (such as the pursuit of key, established professions) tend to be preferred, as is
the case for all working-class groups who take a great deal of economic and social ‘risk’ in their investment in
education (Archer et al, 2003). But Chinese parents’ aspirations to professional jobs may also be about protecting
them from the sorts of work that they themselves have been forced to endure in their quest for ‘a better life’ for
the family. Evidence presented by Pang (1999) certainly suggests that such a preoccupation may be important for
Chinese social mobility in the UK, as she found that those young people who had had to work in family catering
businesses were slightly less likely to achieve their professional aspirations than were those who had not had to help
out in the restaurant or takeaway. Of course, becoming a professional requires a good education. SinNing clearly
presents the tensions between the desire to protect offspring from ‘tough jobs’ via a professional route and applying
too much pressure:
I don’t want her to do a tough job, because I’m pushing hard for her now, she hasn’t made her mind
up on what to do, she’s only at secondary school, but I mean, she hasn’t chosen her subjects yet, but
she makes out that we’re already putting pressure on her. She has asked “mummy, what subject
should I choose?”, I’ve told her to look and see what kind of job she wants to do in the future to
give her a goal. But she feels that I’m putting pressure on her. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Parental commitment to education is also evident from the number of children who were sent to Chinese school at
the weekend. Many of the pupils said that they attended Chinese school, and many more said that they had
attended when they were younger. Of the 30 parents interviewed, 13 had children currently attending Chinese school,
and 16 said their children used to attend. Some of these latter parents expressed regret that their offspring no
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longer attended Chinese school. Only one parent said she had chosen not to send her children, as she thought
learning Chinese might interfere with their English. The parents cited ‘extra learning’ as a motivation for sending
children to Chinese school as well as the transmission of Chinese language and culture. This indicates a broader
construction of education than the credentialist view expressed by their children. And, indeed, a broader construction
of education than stereotypical perceptions of Chinese ‘attitudes’ acknowledge. And as well as sending children to
weekend Chinese school, a number of the parents volunteered that they were paying for extra tuition for their
children outside school hours. This did not appear to be related to social class: some of the working class parents
were paying for this extra provision, again illustrating how far they were willing to go out of their way to support
their children’s education.
But while the parents, like their children, valued education highly, their explanations for the importance of education
were far more diverse than were those of the pupils. As we have shown, the pupils constructed education in almost
exclusively credentialist terms. But whereas over three-quarters of the pupils had said that education is important
because it helps to get a good job, less than half the parents (13) gave this explanation. And where only a handful
of pupils had provided explanations which were in anyway connected to intrinsic aspects of education, over a third of
the parents (12) gave explanations which were much more rooted in the value of education for its own sake. For
example, two mothers mentioned that education aids children’s development, and others mentioned teaching ‘about
morals’ and ‘helping to fit into society’. Hence the responses of parents seemed more often to reflect an intrinsic
value of education in comparison with their offspring, who overwhelmingly articulated the instrumental value of
education. This illustrates both that the responses of Chinese parents and pupils differ, and that there are subtle
generational differences in the Chinese construction of education as ‘valuable’.
Transmission of the value of education from parents to pupils
Hence both pupils and parents were found to value education extremely highly. Researchers such as Pang (1999)
have argued that the concept of ‘family’ is extremely important to the Chinese, and the cornerstone of Chinese and
British-Chinese culture. Clearly family is actually important in most cultures, but the notion of ‘the importance of family’
has been constructed as a particularly Chinese preoccupation (as well as for other minority ethnic groups such as
South Asians) in the construction of ethnic boundaries, both on the part of the white majority and by the minority
ethnic groups themselves. Others go on to suggest that a Chinese belief in felial piety and respect for one’s elders
means that Chinese children are more deferent to their parents than are others (Sham & Woodrow, 1998). Parker
(1998; 2000) and Tam (1998) have questioned such notions, arguing that an orientalist attitude has applied
stereotypical views of the Chinese and their ‘culture’ to explain their socio-economic positioning in the UK; whereas
actually their attitudes are often constructed as a result of, or in reaction to, these specifically British structural
aspects. Probably both factors play a part in constructions of value and behaviour. Certainly, extracts from our data
confirm that British-Chinese youths can and do criticise their parents and question their attitudes, challenging Sham &
Woodrow’s (1998) finding that Chinese pupils “find it difficult to have an independent opinion since opinions are
formed and slavishly followed in a family household from family authority figures” (p. 12). However, the data from the
80 pupils also confirms that the majority consider family, and their parents’ views, to be extremely important and
11
worthy of consideration and/or respect. Moreover, that Chinese parents tended to articulate to their children both the
value of education and high educational expectations for them. For example, Nancy (F, age, Slater School for Girls)
states, “We’ve been told by like our parents that education is important.” Sally’s (F, age, Slater School for Girls)
explanation for the importance of education includes an inter-generational immigrant aspect:
“Because when I was young my parents told me about the, always wanting to have education but
they didn't have money to go to school. So, my parents said that it's really important that you put
your education first.”
Many other children mentioned the influence of parents or parents’ views during the interview discussion, giving the
researchers the impression that as a group British-Chinese children at least give their parents’ views more priority in
discussion than do some white pupils and pupils from some other ethnic groups 4.
There is a racist stereotype of minority ethnic groups such as Chinese or South Asians in Britain as ‘oppressed by
their home culture’. Extensive evidence shows that parental high expectation and surveillance of children’s performance
is usual in middle-class white families, and is a factor in the reproduction of educational success in these families
(Reay, 1998; Walkerdine, Lucey & Melody, 2001; Ball, 2003). This ‘cultural capital’ is set as a norm against which
other class and ethnic groups struggle to match (Reay, 1998). Yet white educationalists have often raised concerns
about the impact of high expectation or ‘pressure’ on children in minority ethnic families concerning educational
performance, presenting such pressure as oppressive or pathological, while not recognising or problematising such
parental ‘pressure’ in white middle-class families. Our data shows that some pupils apparently received little discipline
from parents regarding education, but many did discuss high levels of ‘pressure’ from parents regarding their
educational achievement. Some of these portrayed it as positive, and others complained bitterly about it. Some of the
pupils talked of ‘strict’ and less-strict or ‘freer’ Chinese families, usually claiming that their families fell into the latter
category. But interestingly, even these pupils’ interviews often reflected high parental expectations, such as ‘having to’
go to university. Perhaps such narratives to some extent represent a reproduction of Eurocentric discourse that
presents a dichotomy of ‘repressive traditional/liberal modern’ cultures.
Yet importantly, even where pupils complained about the pressure they were under, these complaints were often not
straight-forward: they often acknowledged that parents were doing it ‘for their own good’, and pupils supported this
approach. This finding challenges the positioning of such parental pressure as simply ‘oppressive’. Like the Muslim
pupils in Archer’s (2003) study, the British-Chinese pupils were often also critical of what they perceived as the
‘laissez-faire’ attitude of parents of their British friends (who were perceived to be allowing their children to underperform), even while reference to their more relaxed attitudes was sometimes quite wistful! For example, Amy (Slater
School for Girls) observes several times in her interview that Chinese parents are stricter than English parents, and
reports how when she was young she “was made to sit there until I could recount all my times tables…six years
old, yeah.” But despite saying that sometimes this attitude can be ‘quite hard’, Amy says that “in the early stages it
was quite useful”, and affirms Chinese higher expectations as helpful in contrast to (less strict) English parents who
12
“just tend to let you do whatever you want and try your best”. HoiLing’s (F, Slater School for Girls) interview
illustrates this ambivalence particularly effectively. When asked what might help or hinder her achievement she replies,
The pressure from my parents. They do, like I feel that Chinese parents, they do pressure the children to
do better, and they expect their child to do, to get a professional job later in life. But I think they also
expect their children to do better in their schooling than like other groups of people. And I think my dad,
personally, pressures me a lot about maths…
And like some other pupil respondents, she juxtaposes her parents’ attitudes with those of her English friends’
parents:
It’s just their (Chinese parents’) expectations are so much higher. And they just expect you to do better
than other people. Like I have one friend who her parents doesn’t really mind, just as long as she does
alright and tries her hardest that’s ok. My parents expect me to get the best grades. They expect me to
be better than other people. And if I don’t then they’ll continuously start nagging at me to do better and
everything, whereas white, I mean my friend’s parents will be like, ‘oh ok, you tried your best, make sure
you try to improve it’. Well my parents will continuously be like ‘try and practice your maths and get it
better’. Like if I get a B, they’ll be like, ‘why didn’t you get an A?’
Yet despite her often bitter tone, Amy also argues that her parents’ approach helps to drive and motivate her to
achieve:
In some respects I want to, like, do really well in order to prove to them and show them, but sometimes
they pressure me too much, when I’m just like, ‘well I don’t want to do it and you can’t force me’...but I
think when my parents pressure me it like pressures me into doing well. So I think it’s better for me
rather than if they didn’t pressure me and let me do my own stuff, then maybe I would be lazy and not
do as much.
As well as cultural issues around respect for elders, it may be that verbal encouragement (or pressure) is adopted
by some Chinese parents as their only option in terms of encouraging their children in the educational achievement
that they value so highly. Those working in the catering industry work long hours, and hence are often not present
to help with homework and so on in the evenings, let alone do any of the other activities which constitute
educational cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1990; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). As Pang (1999) observes of Chinese parents
in the catering industry, “while they appreciate the importance of education, in practice they are unable to actively
encourage their children to focus and devote time to their studies” (p.49). Moreover, as we have seen, many of
these parents do not have good English, or even basic levels of education, necessary to help and advise on
schoolwork. This problem was a preoccupation for some of the parent respondents in our study who clearly felt
inadequate and helpless. SuiHing observes with regret,
13
There’s a lot of stuff that I can’t help her with. My standard of English isn’t very good. I can only take
on the responsibility of supporting her as much as I can, and to care about her eating and drinking, and
to maintain her health! {chuckles} Hoping that she’ll have the energy to overcome her difficulties.
And ShunHei agrees, “As a parent I’ll do all I can, I would help them as much as I can. It’s difficult to say
because it’s quite difficult to know how to help.” Hence for these parents, stress on high expectations in terms of
behaviour and achievement at school becomes a particularly necessary disciplinary tool to ensure their children’s
motivation and achievement, in absence of being able to help in more ‘hands-on’ ways. It is a strategic response to
an acknowledged lack of alternative forms of social capital.
More generally, other aspects of British-Chinese culture did seem to play a part in the pupils and parents’
constructions of education and achievement. The notion of high value of education as a feature of Chinese culture
(see Taylor, 1987; Parker, 1998; Pang, 1999) was acknowledged and articulated with pride by some of the parents,
suggesting that this notion is being drawn on to construct a diasporic cultural boundary for the first and secondgeneration Chinese in Britain (Parker, 1998). For example, PuiKeung (M) argues that English teachers have a
particular view of Chinese pupils, explaining,
In one of the parents evenings, I spoke to the French teacher and she said that ‘you shouldn’t need to
worry too much about (daughter’s name)’, that’s my daughter’s name, she said that ‘she’s done quite good
in her French, and another thing is your race: you’re Chinese and generally speaking Chinese people
seem to do well in education’ {chuckles}. [interviewer prompt: oh, ok, so what do you think she was trying
to say?] I think she was trying to say that because, I think in Chinese family, how shall I put it, we are
very conscientious, we know that education is important so we will tell our child…[prompt: …encourage
them…] encourage them to do well in school. So I think that is what she is trying to say.
PuiKeung’s example of the French teacher’s statement is interesting because it shows how the ‘Chinese value of
education’ is a racialised discourse, used by the white population to position ‘the Chinese’ in a particular way. We
would argue that it is part of the wider discourse that positions the Chinese as diligent and conformist (Chau & Yu,
2001; Parker, 1998). Yet the Chinese respondents appeared to be drawing on this narrative to fashion a positive
construction of ‘Chineseness’. As Carmen explains, she sees education as important because of her Chinese culture:
“Because of culture: I was brought up in believing that if you’ve got a good education then it’s better than money
{laughs}. I will always have this in my mind.” Pupils affirmed this view: Sarah (F, Hills High) explains she values
education because, “like my thought is different from other English people, so traditionally we think that education is
a really, really important part of our life”, and Rebecca (F, Slater School for Girls) agrees, “because I come from
China and when we’re young we’re taught to value education because we have to pay for it and I actually like it”.
A construction of attributes in racialised boundaries is evident in these responses; a Chinese ‘we’ who value
education positioned against an English (white) Other who do not.
14
The issue of ‘face’ was also a motivator to achieve for pupils and parents according to some of the British-Chinese
pupils. Certainly in the personal experience of one of the researchers the issue of ‘giving good face’ continues to
play a part in Chinese interaction, and children’s educational and occupational successes are key currency in this.
Hoi-Ling (F, Slater School for Girls) explains, “they just expect me to do really well, and sort of make comparisons
with like other Chinese people, and be like ‘oh, why can’t you be like her and get as good grades as her?” And
“they like telling their friends, ‘oh, my daughter’s a lawyer’, or something professional. Also they look at like their
Chinese, other Chinese friends and they see their daughters are doing so well, and their sons are doing so well,
and therefore they’re like ‘well she should be like, we should make our daughters do well”. This competitive element
is reported by HeiHei (F, William Little School) as aiding learning for British-Chinese pupils (see also Woodrow &
Sham, 2001):
Being clever for the Chinese is a good thing, secondly, is that many Chinese people like when the, if
someone is cleverer than the other the other person will try to improve him or herself, you know to get
like better grades than the other person like. It’s like a competition, it’s like getting better than her, Alison.
Later on in the year, she’s been like revising at a thousand more than me, she’s gonna get more than
me and for the Chinese this is a good way of learning and it’s really good and that’s why we study
more.
Discussion
As we have shown, the ‘value of education’ emerged strongly from the responses of British-Chinese pupils and their
parents, both in terms of their direct answers to our questions about the importance of education, and in their more
general discussions. In this paper we have examined some of the ways in which a discourse of ‘Chinese value of
education’ was being used by pupils and parents to fashion a positive and proud construction of ‘Chineseness’ in
Britain. We have argued that, in this context, the ‘Chinese value of education’ is a racialised narrative, used by the
white population to position ‘the Chinese’ in a particular way, and it is part of a wider, pernicious discourse that
positions the Chinese as diligent, conformist, and self-repressed. Yet it is being used actively by the Chinese in
Britain to construct a positive sense of identity. As such, this construction is to some extent a product of diasphoric
‘habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1990; Parker, 2001). Of course, as we noted earlier, the value of education is reported to be
strong among HongKong and mainland Chinese as well, so is far from unique to the Chinese community in Britain.
However, we maintain that it is being drawn on by the Chinese in Britain in particular ways (especially in relation to
‘Others’’ apparent lack of value of education) in order to construct a positive, proud cultural boundary in the British
context. This construction of ‘value of education’ also becomes a strategy in the face of difficult socio-economic
conditions for immigrants in Britain, by which the British-Chinese can mobilise an ethnically-particular cultural capital to
progress social class mobility.
Clearly the high value placed on education by the Chinese in Britain is only one aspect which may contribute to
their educational achievement. For example, besides cultural factors, it is possible that teacher expectations of BritishChinese pupils encourage their educational success. Gillborn (1990) describes the stereotyping of South Asian pupils
15
as ‘behavers and achievers’ by teachers, and the dominant stereotypes of the Chinese as conformist and diligent
might result in similar constructions of British-Chinese pupils. Certainly there is evidence of high teacher-expectations
for Chinese pupils from both the pupils and from some teachers themselves (see Archer & Francis, forthcoming b).
(Such expectations are of course linked to the narrative of ‘Chinese value of education’, and this narrative is
apparently perpetuated and fed by the responses of teachers and Chinese parents). However, our results showing the
very high value placed on education by British-Chinese pupils and their parents suggests that this value is a factor
in their generally high achievement 6. As we have shown, this high value was consistent in Chinese pupils and
parents irrespective of social class, gender, or ability.
This finding is particularly interesting, as some studies have found that gender, and particularly social class, impact on
the educational success of ethnic minority groups (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996; Gillborn & Mirza, 2002; Reay, 1998). We
explore issues around Chinese pupils’ constructions of gender identity and education elsewhere, and wish to focus
briefly on social class here, particularly as this has traditionally been associated with extent of ‘value’ placed on
education. Findings by Reay (1998) and Reay & Ball (1997) support Bourdieu’s argument that besides straight-forward
financial resources, the ‘cultural capital’ endowed to middle class parents aids them in ensuring their children’s
educational progression and success. For example, Reay (1998) found that white working class mothers lacked the
cultural capital required to liase effectively with their children’s teachers, or to help their children at home to the
extent that their middle-class counterparts could. Looking at Afro-Caribbean working-class mothers, Reay (1998)
maintains that despite their comparatively extensive efforts to progress their children’s successful education, these
women still held the ‘wrong cultural currency’. What cultural capital they had was of a different sort from that held by
middle class white teachers and educationalists, and was therefore rendered relatively ineffectual when interacting in the
British educational system. These factors are presented as disadvantaging the school achievement of children from
these families.
However, the Chinese community in Britain offers an interesting case of comparison. The vast majority of first
generation Chinese immigrants were from impoverished peasant backgrounds, and often had little education themselves
(Taylor, 1987). Hence they could not be seen as middle-class (although it is certainly the case that many of these
first generation Chinese have subsequently become affluent as a result of their entrepreneurship in the catering trade).
Moreover, due to language problems and to the long hours required of employees in the catering industry, many first
generation Chinese have been unable to provide their children with any practical help with their school work.
Similarly, resources usually envisaged as contributing to cultural capital (books, educational materials, educational trips,
liaisons with the school, and so on) are usually lacking in first generation households, where language barriers, low
finances and long hours impede the provision of educational resources (Sham & Woodrow, 1998). Yet the children of
these parents have largely succeeded in achieving educational success despite this, and in the face of continuing
racial discrimination in the education system (see Pang, 1999) and racist abuse in the classroom and playground (see
Archer & Francis, forthcoming b). As Parker (1998) observes, the ‘extraordinarily high achievement rates’ of British
Chinese pupils in the British education system is a ‘testimony to their resolve and determination’ (p.97). Clearly other
ethnic groups have also striven for such educational success, without the same results. What we are suggesting,
then, is that the Chinese in Britain, though often lacking resources which have traditionally been seen to constitute
16
cultural capital, use an ethnically-specific construction of identity as alternative resource of cultural capital. This
ethnically and location-specific construction has provided them with the outlook and approach which enables this
generally high educational performance.
In this sense, could the high value placed on education, coupled with respect for elders which allows the
transmission of these strong values from parents to children, constitute ‘the right cultural currency’ (as opposed to the
‘wrong cultural currency’ which Reay, 1998, argues is held by groups such as Afro-Caribbean parents)? We would
argue not, and that indeed the Chinese case to some extent questions the application of Bourdieurian analysis for
non-Western groups. The Chinese approach does not guarantee access to and approval by British educators. As we
observed above, the high expectation of Chinese parents regarding their children’s obedience and excellent educational
performance, their children’s common desire to honour the expectations of their parents, and the ‘pressure’ this entails,
is far from universally admired by white middle-class teachers and commentators. For example, Woodrow & Sham
(2001) and Sham and Woodrow (1998) describe British-Chinese pupils as ‘conformist’ in their attitude and argue that
this impedes ‘growth and change’. Ran (1998) observes how white teachers’ talk is on ‘parallel tracks’ with Chinese
parents at open evenings, due to the very different form that their educational values take. From a Western liberal
perspective, then, and certainly from a Eurocentric child-development perspective, the Chinese practices regarding
education are problematic and even pathological; meaning that their ‘cultural currency’ is not valued equally in the
West. Yet the configuration of factors such as the construction of an exceedingly high valuing of education as an
aspect of British-Chinese identity, coupled with other cultural factors and a slice of migrant determination, may be
comprising a particular Chinese form of cultural capital. In this sense, many British-Chinese families are confounding
both their discursive positioning as passive, and their socio-economic positioning as working-class, by ensuring that
educational success (and upward mobility) occurs.
However, it is important that this argument is not used to imply that ‘everyone can succeed with the right attitude’ in
the British education system. Chinese constructions of ethnic identity and education are very specific. And as our
findings, and those of researchers such as Wong (1994) and Parker (1998; 2000) have demonstrated, the firstgeneration and many second-generation Chinese have endured incredibly high costs (hardships and deprivations) in
order to break the cycle of necessity and to make possible the luxury of choice for their children. As we have
discussed, these hardships, struggles and psychological wounds were evident in the talk of the parent respondents,
both in what they said, and in what they left unsaid. Further, as our data shows, British-Chinese children themselves
pay a high price for their success in terms of the hard work undertaken and their resulting positioning by other
pupils (see Archer and Francis, forthcoming b). For some of the pupils the high expectations and pressure exerted
by some parents were resulting in a fear producing anything other than excellence (as for white middle class girls in
Walkerdine, Lucey & Melody’s study, 2001). And it is vital to remember that not all Chinese parents or pupils take
up these dominant constructions; and there may be particular psychic and material consequences for British-Chinese
pupils who ‘fail’. All this being said, our results clearly support the argument that the Chinese value for education is
exceptionally high, and that this value has positive consequences both for the educational performance of BritishChinese pupils in the British education system, and for their potential social-class mobility.
17
Notes:
1) The educational success of British-Chinese pupils should not be taken as an indication that members of the
Chinese community do not face problems in Britain. Owen (1994) and Cheng & Heath (1993) show that Chinese
graduates experience higher unemployment levels compared to white graduates, and gain lower graduate earnings
(Cheng and Heath, 1993). The Runnymede Trust (1986) and Chau and Yu (2001) found that Chinese people
sometimes have difficulty accessing public and social services.
2) The project is titled, ‘British-Chinese Pupils’ Constructions of Education, Gender, and Post-16 Pathways’, ESRC
project no. R000239585.
3) We did not ask the parents from Hong Kong about their work and educational trajectories before their emigration
to the UK, bar a basic question about the extent of their education, as our concern was their perspectives on
their children’s education.
4) Francis has conducted work with mixed-ethncitiy mixed-sex sample from this age-group (e.g. Francis 2000); Archer
has conducted work with South-Asian samples groups from this age-group (Archer, 2003); and they have jointly
researched a mixed-ethnicity sample of girls school pupils from this age-group (Francis et al, 2003).
5) In HongKong and Mainland China parents are required to pay for many aspects of their children’s education.
6) Although the British-Chinese are high achievers as a group in the British education system, it is important to
remember that this is not true of all British-Chinese pupils.
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19
Table 1: Occupations of pupils’ parents
Occupation
No. of Parents
Takeaway or restaurant worker
39
At home/not working
37
Takeaway or restaurant owner/manager
25
Professional
23
Other occupation
21
Other business owner
7
Student
2
(Unclear/not known)
(6)
N
160
20