Family Impact: Chinese-background students in NSW selective high schools

Abstract

NSW schooling is characterised by choice and competition and has a large number of academically selective public high schools, most of which are located in the Sydney metropolitan area. It has been widely noted that Chinese background students in NSW are over-represented in the state’s publically funded selective high schools—schools that cater for academically high achieving students. This over-representation has attracted attention in the broader community and raised the interest of educational authorities and researchers who want to identify the underlying factors contributing to this phenomenon. To investigate Chinese-background students’ high academic achievements from a family perspective, a sociocultural and ecological systems theory approach was adopted; placing the interactions between 14 Year 7 and Year 8 Chinese-background students (aged 12 to 14) attending selective high schools, their first generation parents and the family environment at the centre of the study’s focus. Opportunity sampling (Mukherji & Albon, 2010: 197) was employed to recruit participants matching desired criteria from two community-run Saturday Chinese language schools located in the Sydney metropolitan area. A qualitative approach involving semi-structured in-depth interviews was adopted as the main data collection method. Deductive analysis processes involving a comparison of data from the students with those of their parents and other siblings, revealed that, while a combination of socio-cultural factors contributed to the Chinese-background students’ academic achievements, certain family-related factors were most influential. Such factors not only reflected traditional Chinese beliefs surrounding the value of education, but included a heightened sense of obligation for academic achievement on the part of the students. This heightened sense of obligation stemmed from the recognition that parents had undergone hardships, often sacrificing their own professional careers in the belief that it would ensure the academic and future career successes of their children. Additionally, parenting practices were characterized by involvement in children’s education from an early age and the provision of opportunities for multiple extra-curricular learning, including academic subjects, arts and sports. The study found that many of the strategies adopted by the Chinese migrant families to support their children at school originated from their determination to acculturate into Australian society. A key finding of the study is that while NSW selective schools are founded on beliefs about academic ‘giftedness’, these first generation Chinese background parents and children do not agree with the western definition of individual ‘lucky’ giftedness. Instead, they see NSW selective schools as places that can be accessed by ‘hard’ work and will be conducive to on-going ‘hard’ work, academic competition and achievement. Importantly, this ‘hard’ work is a whole-family project, and does not just rely on the individual child’s gifts or motivation. The families in this study also made a strategic assessment about the undesirable peer groups that they believe are likely to hinder progress in either the elite private schools or the local public schools. Findings hold implications for educational authorities regarding the important synergies between family- and school-life. They also challenge popular myths surrounding Chinese-background students’ inherent capacities for academic success and emphasise the potential role families can play in the academic achievement of all children.