Dilemmas, emancipation and transformation: narratives of mothers from an alternative school in China

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday VI)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Women's educational narratives as students, parents, teachers and leaders

Proposal

Introduction

During the 1980s, educators in Mainland China began to advocate the “education for quality” system (suzhi jiaoyu) over “exam-oriented education” system (yingshi jiaoyu), focusing on teaching “competencies” rather than exam-taking skills (Kipnis, 2011; Zhao, 2009). The K-12 education system has been constantly reformed since then, however, the changes have been hampered and ineffective (Dello-lacovo, 2009; Zheng, 2013). In the past two decades, many alternative schools have been founded and continue to grow in number across China as a pathway to meet the needs of the students and their families who are dissatisfied with the traditional school system. Fo Yuan Family-School (FYJX) is one of many such alternative schools. Originally established in 2015, the school only consists of students and parents. Students’ ages range from 6 to 16. Most of the parents who are engaged in school life are the students’ mothers, while most of the fathers still maintain their jobs and visit the families only occasionally, since the school is in motion and classes often take place on the road. Students and parents have completed about 10,000 kilometers by foot from Hunan Province to Inner Mongolia in the past three years. Students are never assigned writing homework or exams. They believe in “nature, children and classics as the teacher”, which is the educational philosophy of Fu Xi education. Since Fu Xi education was established in 2006 by a former university professor, 258 Fu Xi schools and classes have been currently registered in Education Bureaus in China. But, FYJX is the one and only family-school among Fu Xi schools. It follows the Fu Xi educational mission “to benefit one’s whole life by teaching human ethics and following human nature”. However, what is in fact happening in the school, who benefits from this alternative model, and how the school has been formed as a gendered site warrants further investigation.

Research Questions

For the purpose of this paper, I will investigate the following questions: 1) How have the mothers’ self-perceptions of motherhood been constructed through their engagement in the school? 2) How have the mothers perceived their children’s schooling? Through documenting and analyzing the narratives of the mothers, this research will contribute to better understanding family engagement and gender ideologies that are related to this alternative family-school model.

Theoretical Framework

In this research, a combination of critical theory and feminist theory will be used as theoretical framework. Critical theory refers to “the nature of SELFCONSCIOUS CRITIQUE (capitalization in original text) and the need to develop a discourse of social transformation and emancipation that does not cling dogmatically to its own doctrinal assumptions” (Giroux, 2003, p. 27-28). Critical theory will allow for the exploration of what is actually taking place in FYJX from the perspectives of mothers. Feminist theory will provide a stance and perspective (Reinharz, 1992; Weiner, 1994) to analyze their practice of motherhood and the way that the roles of mother have been shaped by children’s schooling, critically challenging the mythology of motherhood in a specific cultural and educational setting.

Research Methods

Narrative inquiry is used for this research not only as its own methodology but also as phenomenon (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Through “respecting and honoring an ordinary lived experience,” narrative inquiry is viewed as “a source of important knowledge and social understanding” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 17). For this research, I will also follow the approach of narrative analysis (Riessman, 1993) to tell and retell, to live and relive a life story of three Chinese mothers, as Cole claims, “as it is for them, in their context, and in their time” (2009, p. 574). Specifically, this research focuses on three mothers, Su Chun, Ruo Shui and Yi Xin. Their ages were between 36 and 40 at the initial interview. The work is part of a larger one-year research project on assessment and evaluation of Fu Xi education in China from May 2018.

Findings and Discussion

Five preliminary themes are discussed in the paper: 1) struggles with traditional school and curriculum; 2) constructed mother-children bonding; 3) mothers’ body and mind on the road; 4) home in motion and fathering at a distance; and 5) mothering as self-transformation. This research compels us to rethink the claim of education for sustainability and revalue the practice of K-12 educational reform in contemporary China. It also raises the need to redefine the meaning of learning that has been powerfully shaped by the exam-oriented education system. Meanwhile, it explores the life stories of Chinese mothers with an aim of empowering them to value the journey of individual transformation and emancipation for social justice.

Works Cited
Clandinin, D. J. (2013). Engaging in narrative inquiry. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, Inc.
Clandinin, D. J. & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Cole, B. (2009). Gender, narratives and intersectionality: Can personal experience approaches to research contribute to “undoing gender”? International Review of Education, 55, 561-578.
Dello-lacovo, B. (2009). Curriculum reform and ‘quality education’ in China: An overview. International Journal of Educational Development, 29(3), 241-249. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2008.02.008
Giroux, H. (2003). Critical Theory and Educational Practice. In A. Darder, M. Baltodano & R. Torres (Eds.), The Critical Pedagogy Reader. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
Kipnis, A. B. (2011). Governing educational desire: Culture, politics, and schooling in China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Reinharz, S., & Davidman, L. (1992). Feminist methods in social research. New York: Oxford University Press.
Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Weiner, G. (1994). Feminisms in Education. Milton Keynes, Open University Press.
Zhao, Y. (2009). Catching up or leading the way: American education in the age of globalization. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Zheng, Y. (2013). Wuguo jiaoyu bingli. [Educational pathology in China]. Beijing: CITIC Press Group.

Author

• Xiangyan Liu, Peking University