China's only child: The impact on early childhood education and family childrearing.

摘要

In 1979, in an effort to control its over-population problem, the government of the People's Republic of China decreed that no family could have more than one child, with few exceptions. In recent years, claims have appeared that only children are different from previous generations--most say they are pampered or "spoiled," some say they are pressured toward high achievement. This thesis studies the question of how kindergartens and families are raising only children in the era of the single child policy, focusing on achievement goals and discipline methods.;During ten months of ethnographic fieldwork, data were collected at two primary sites, urban kindergartens in northern China. One was a large, elite, university kindergarten; the other an average-sized, working class, neighborhood kindergarten.;Two groups of children, the "democratic" or best behaved and the "spoiled" or worst behaved, were observed. The children were divided into these groups by their teachers, based on a Chinese theory which emphasized classroom behaviors and parental discipline styles. The observations, which focused on the children's daily routines and behaviors and the teachers' management of misbehaviors and interactions with these children, tried to understand how teachers see and label children. The study also wanted to see if teachers from these two different kinds of kindergartens had different expectations of and interactions with "democratic" and "spoiled" children.;The study found that in the two schools the "democratic" and "spoiled" children did not exhibit distinguishable differences in strengths and weaknesses as reported by their teachers. Also, contrary to Chinese educators' theories, parents of the "democratic" and "spoiled" children did not report differences in their discipline methods. Nonetheless, most of the children of parents who were college educated were labeled "democratic" by teachers, whereas most of the children of parents who only had a middle school education were labeled "spoiled," especially at the University School. The study proposes that parental status is as much a factor in the labeling as are children's behaviors or parenting style.;The thesis concludes with comments about changes in the family and with concerns about the strained relationships between teachers, parents, and grandparents. The study emphasizes the need for further research about only children, especially highlighting the concern for "two faced" children who need to cope with contrasting school and home environments.