Parental Expectations of Early Childhood Education in Hong Kong: Differences between Chinese and Pakistani Parents

• In Event: Examining familial and early developmental processes among ethnic majority and minority families in Asia

Abstract

Parental expectations of early childhood education (ECE) affect children’s learning outcomes. Some studies suggested that minority parents held lower expectations of ECE than parents in the majority group due to adverse socioeconomic conditions (Syed et al., 2018), whereas others argued that minority parents held higher expectations for upward social mobility (Motti-Stefanidi, 2018). In this study, we compared the parental expectations of Chinese ethnic majority and Pakistani ethnic minority in Hong Kong. Pakistanis are the most disadvantaged in terms of family monthly household income and highest education level attained among the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong (Census and Statistics Department, 2021). We also explored the roles of child’s gender and socioeconomic status (SES) on parental expectations. We hypothesized that Pakistani parents would have higher expectations of ECE than Chinese parents in the high-performing Hong Kong educational system. In addition, we expected that low-SES Pakistani parents would have higher expectations of boys than of girls compared to low-SES Chinese parents because the Pakistani society is highly patriarchal (Khurshid, 2015).

Participants were 73 Pakistani parents (29 fathers, 44 mothers; age range: 22-45 years, Mage = 34.69 years, SD = 5.19), identified through non-profit organizations, and 214 Chinese parents (46 fathers, 168 mothers; age range: 21-56 years, Mage = 35.49 years, SD = 5.55) recruited from local kindergartens. Their kindergarten children were between 3 and 6 years. There were 41 Pakistani boys and 32 Pakistani girls (Mage = 4.12 years, SD = 0.83), and 125 Chinese boys and 89 Chinese girls (Mage = 3.71 years, SD = 1.13). Parents completed a questionnaire with items mapping their expectations of ECE for promoting collective life, self-control, moral development, cognition and language, gross motor development, living habits, and aesthetic development.

Figure 1 shows the conceptual moderated moderation model that underpinned the statistical analyses. We carried out a moderated moderation analysis in Hayes’ PROCESS macro (v4.0, model 3) to examine the main effects of culture, child’s gender, SES, and their interaction effects on different dimensions of parental expectations of ECE. For the interaction effects that were significant, we conducted simple slope tests. Overall, Pakistani parents reported higher expectations of ECE than Chinese parents. Table 1 presents the results of the moderation analysis. There were significant interactions between culture, child’s gender, and SES in parental expectations of ECE in the dimensions of self-control, moral development, gross motor development, and living habits. Specifically, low-SES Pakistani parents held higher expectations of boys than girls compared to low-SES Chinese parents for all the four dimensions, whereas high-SES Pakistani parents had higher expectations of boys than girls compared to high-SES Chinese parents for self-control and gross motor development. However, only high-SES Pakistani parents were found to have higher expectation of girls than high-SES Chinese parents for self-control, moral development, and gross motor development. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the high and gendered expectations of ECE among Pakistani parents. Implications for supporting Pakistani parental involvement in education that aligns with their high expectation and promoting gender equality in ECE were discussed.

Authors

• Yau Yu Chan, The University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author

• Jianbin Li, The Education University of Hong Kong