- Title
- Constructing early English as a foreign language education in China: a case study of parents’ choices in a changing educational context
- Creator
- Yang, Liu
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2024
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- In China, at the national level, the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) has been explicitly prohibited in all kindergartens since 2011. However, many parents continue to send their children to learn EFL prior to entering primary school. Few studies have developed an in-depth investigation of parents’ choices for their children’s early EFL education within Chinese contexts. This research draws on Foucault’s concepts as analytic tools and employs a case study design to examine how Chinese parents make choices for their children’s early EFL education under the national education reform policies. The circulation of Chinese political discourses creates a context in which parents’ choices about their children’s early EFL education are complex. Using the concept of national imaginary, this thesis explores three influential stages of EFL learning (1949-1960s, 1970s-2010 and 2010s to date) as a background to the production and governance of early EFL education. These stages display how the enthusiasm for EFL learning has been produced, escalated and softened within the dynamics of national imaginary and take effect on early EFL teaching. This thesis suggests that through different interpretations about the national policies, private kindergarten principals and teachers continue to provide EFL programmes in response to parents’ demand. Four key themes emerged from the data to elucidate how Chinese parents’ choices about their children’s early EFL education in China are scaffolded: a) a political construction on the importance of EFL learning that shapes parents’ preferences about early EFL education; b) parents’ popular understandings about early EFL learning have produced certain regimes of truth that govern their educational decision-making; c) the combination of Chinese traditional values and a highly competitive educational system creates parents’ high expectations for their children’s academic performance and motivates them to choose early EFL education; d) the commercial tactics of private-tuition programmes enable parents to make new choices for their children’s early EFL education. Within the proliferation of neo-liberal discourses in China, parents have shaped themselves as entrepreneurial selves who emphasize their own responsibility for the outcomes of their children’s EFL learning. These parents are governed and self-governed to choose early EFL education for their children while engaging with the competing discourses between the national policies and their preferences about EFL learning. That Chinese parents have choices about their children’s early EFL education is an “illusion” constituted within power relations.
- Subject
- English as a foreign language (EFL); parents' choices; early childhood education; China
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1506243
- Identifier
- uon:55835
- Rights
- Copyright 2024 Liu Yang
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 3 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 314 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |