Education Anxiety Of Middle-Class Parents:Status,Problems And Reasons

In contemporary China,middle-class parents show a diffuse anxiety on their children's education.Surrounded by educational anxiety,they have taken children into mad extra-curricular training and eleven-plus war,which affects the physical and mental health of the children,the consumption structure of the family,and the morbid trend of education.However,at present,there are few scientific and rigorous research achievements on parental education anxiety,and we still know little about the status of parents' education anxiety in the middle-class.Therefore,the middle-class parents' educational anxiety is a problem that needs to be highly concerned and seriously studied.Through the questionnaire survey on the parents of ninth graders in Nanjing,Wuhan and Foshan,and the analysis of the case interviews,this article discusses the status,causes and effects of parents' educational anxiety in the middle-class.On this basis,some suggestions and countermeasures for relieving parents' educational anxiety are put forward.The study found that:The overwhelming majority of parents have the problem of education anxiety.The survey shows that 88.5% of middle-class parents are anxious about their children's education.71.2% of them are in proper level of educational anxiety;15.4% are in the level of moderate education anxiety;1.9% were in the level of severe education anxiety;the other 11.5% of the middle-class parents were relatively not anxious about their children's education.The content of parents' educational anxiety is concentrated in the following five aspects:(1)anxiety about their children's school selection,(2)anxiety about their children's learning achievement,(3)anxiety about their children's learning attitude,(4)anxiety for the future development of their children,(5)parent-child interaction anxiety.The anxiety level of middle class parents in these five areas from high to low are: "learning attitude anxiety" > "school choosing anxiety","future development anxiety","learning performance anxiety" > "parent-child interaction anxiety".In addition,there are significant differences in the degree of total education anxiety or a single level of anxiety among parents with different educationalbackground,family income,educational expectations,and children's learning.This kind of anxiety has a great deal of influence on parents,children and families.About 70% of middle-class parents said that anxiety about their children's education affected their physical and mental health and happiness.More than 60% of the middle-class parents said that the anxiety also affected their career development,the physical and mental health of the children,the family relationship and the household consumption structure.The reason for the middle-class parents' anxiety is mainly from the three aspects of society,family and children themselves.The reasons for the top five are the fierce competition of employment,the poor learning attitude of the children,the uninheritable cultural capital,the fierce competition of high quality education opportunities and the unsound social security system.Among them,the children's learning attitude is the most direct reason for the problem of parental education anxiety;the fierce competition of employment and the contention of high quality education resources,and the low level of social security system are the root causes of the parents' educational anxiety of the middle class.In addition,the relative poverty of the family economy and social capital,the inherent characteristics of the capital and the educational expectation of high achievement further stimulated the educational anxiety of the middle-class parents.Therefore,in order to alleviate the education anxiety of the middle-class parents and keep them in a proper scope,the government should promote the education reform,promote the balanced distribution of high quality education resources,enrich the supply of high quality education resources;on the other hand,it should improve the social security system and raise the level of social security.Besides,the middle-class parents themselves should maintain a rational understanding,correct their misunderstanding,adjust their mentality,and establish a reasonable educational expectation.