Study On Educational Ideas Of Chinese Very Young International Students' Parents

Since the middle of the 1990s in 20th century, self-financed studying abroad becomes increasingly popular in China. In the meantime, the very young international students, so-called the little international students, become an increasingly larger section among Chinese international students. Their living and studying abroad, especially some negative news and reports via the media, arouse widespread public concern. According to current research literature, parents'educational ideas influence considerably parenting patterns and parents'decisions about their children's studying abroad and further make impacts on children's lives overseas. Therefore, this study investigates educational ideas of Chinese very young international students'parents, focusing on the fundamental question:what are educational ideas of these parents?Taking content analysis as the main method, this study uses more than 1500 posts in nearly 20 web logs (blog) of parents at High School Students Studying Abroad Group at blog. sina. com.cn, a popular blog provider in China, as primary analytic data, undertakes the processes of open coding and integrative coding, and finally develops a coding frame, which structures the interpretation of analytic results within three sub-questions.First, how do parents of Chinese very young international students understand education? This study investigates this question through parents'motivations for sending their children overseas and their attitudes towards course selection and registration. Specifically, most parents send their children overseas because they are dissatisfied with schooling in China nowadays, and they hope their children pursue better education in foreign countries. Such attitude relates closely to their understanding about education, which is created and advanced through the interaction between families and schools. As for course selection and registration, there are also conflicts between Chinese parents and foreign schools. The former put primary emphasis on grade point, while the latter value students'own interests and aptitudes. Such contrast indicates different educational ideas.Second, how do these parents understand their roles and responsibilities in education? This study interprets this question via the code Caoxin, a native concept in parents'blog posts. The Caoxin represents not only parents'mental status of worrying about their children, but also their acts of taking care of them with such emotion. Parents often consider their children as young baby, underestimating their ability and potential. Besides, parents write a great number of posts to thank people for providing their children with various kinds of help, yet their underlying motive is to express and ease enormous worries about their children. This remarkable phenomenon implies parents'understanding about their roles and responsibilities in education.Third, how do they fulfill their responsibilities? Based upon native concepts such as yaokong [remote control], bianchangmoji [beyond one's grasp], fangshou [loosen one's grip; let go], shiying [adapt to], this study analyzes parents' general attitudes and acts of fulfilling their responsibilities. Specifically, parents usually consider children as "private property", trying hard to maintain remote control. Yet due to long distance, parents often fail in such struggle. Thus, parents will feel that their children are beyond their grasp, and will let them go finally. During this passive process, parents experience dual adaptation; that is, they become used to the separate life from their children (adaptation of living) and to the differences of culture and schooling among China and other countries (adaptation of culture).Finally, this study demonstrates how difficult it is for parents to change their educational ideas. Currently, there exists a speed difference between the accelerating trend of Chinese very young international students and the relatively stable parents' educational ideas. Therefore, we should foster effective collaboration among parents, schools and the society, so as to help parents develop their educational ideas.