Faced with increasingly fierce competition, Chinese middle-class parents have mobilized multiple capitals to help their children to achieve academic success and transmit their social advantage (Fong, 2004, 2011; Zhang, 2020; Soong, 2022). Interestingly, during the past decade, some Chinese middle parents began to opt for alternative education instead of sending their children to mainstream schools (Wang, 2022; Wu, 2019; Xu and Spruyt, 2022). The emergence of different types of alternative education among Chinese middle-class parents challenges our understanding of the middle class and education in China in several ways. First, with the existence of high-stakes exams, mainstream schools, especially some elite public schools, are the most experienced in training and disciplining students to prepare for the educational market. As such, choosing different types of alternative schools also does not seem to be a safe strategy for middle-class parents to guarantee their children’s success in the educational competition. Furthermore, with the authoritarian educational governance in China, all schools are under close supervision of the government (Wang and Chan, 2015). Since most of the alternative education in China is still at an ambiguous legal status, these schools also face ongoing risks for survival (Xu and Spruyt, 2022). When we take these elements together, it raises the question that why Chinese middle-class parents opt for alternative education for children.

According to the classical social reproduction theories, middle-class parents are able to mobilize multiple forms of capital to help their children to achieve academic success (Bourdieu, 1998; Lareau, 2011). It concerns here an indirect, school-mediated, transmission of the status, which also means that for the individuals involved in the game, this social reproduction is not a guaranteed destiny (Bourdieu, 1998), so parents have to always make wise choices and invest intensively in their children so as to raise their children’s chances of educational success. Following this logic, the educational practice that seems to fall out of this schema is usually attributed to a deviation or error (Bourdieu, 1998). This reasoning, however, has been criticized and some scholars argue that Bourdieu’s argument is insufficient to account for “the intricacy, deviation, and differing degrees and directions of mobility” (Atkinson, 2012). To explain the alternative choices in the educational field, three threads in the current literature studies can be identified. First, some researchers turned to the diverse dimensions of the social reproduction process (Sayer, 205; Reay, 2011; Lan, 2014). The second thread of studies attributes some deviant educational practices such as the choice for alternative education to specific fractions within the middle-class (Bernstein, 2003; Aarseth, 2018; Uboldi, 2020). Thirdly, some scholars step out of the social reproduction framework and attribute the diverse social and educational trajectories to habitus changes as a result of social transformation and increasing individual reflectivity (Archer, 2007; Yang, 2014). Overall, the above studies provided different perspectives to understand unexpected (alternative) choices and trajectories within the educational field. Thus, the three strands of research also provided us with possible theoretical frameworks to understand middle-class parents’ alternative educational choices in China.

In the current study, we formulated our research questions as follows: (1) how do these Chinese middle-class parents account for their alternative educational choice? (2) how do these parents’ educational perspectives differ from/resemble the mainstream educational logic in China? (3) what are the possible structural and individual reasons for their alternative education practice? By focusing on middle-class parents choosing alternative education, we aim to unravel the logic behind the seemingly deviant educational trajectory and explore how the phenomenon relates to social reproduction theories. By doing this, we also want to further examine the applicability of Bourdieu’s theories in the Chinese context.

In this study, we focus on one particular type of alternative education in China, namely parents-initiated Innovative schools (Xu and Spruyt, 2022). More specifically, we use Dali as a case study and conducted online interviews with parents whose children were enrolled in Innovative schools there. As a tourist city located in the southwest of China, Dali is famous for educational innovation and the development of various Innovative schools. Some urban middle-class parents even migrate to Dali to send their children to these Innovative schools. In this study, online interviews were used to collect data for the following reasons. First, this study started in September 2020. The strict flight control and lockdown measures in China rendered it impossible for the researcher to go back to China to conduct face-to-face interviews. Online interviews enabled us to approach as many respondents as possible (O’Connor and Madge, 2017). Second, considering the ambiguous legal status of alternative education, talking about this topic might be sensitive for some participants. Some participants may feel more comfortable and are more willing to share in the online environment. We recruited parents (1) who chose an Innovation School in Dali for their children and (2) whose children have stayed in such school for at least one semester. Parents were recruited through acquaintance referrals and snowball sampling. A video was made to describe the research topics and the recruitment notice. Interested participants were invited to fill in a pre-research survey in which they could leave some background information and contact details. The researcher then approached them and had an informal conversation with them by phone or message. If the participants agreed to participate in the research, an interview was scheduled. Interviews were conducted through online platforms, including Teams Zoom, and WeChat. The interview platform was chosen according to the preferences of the respondents. All interviews were carried out between March and June 2022. At the end of the fieldwork, we interviewed 33 parents. Interviews lasted between 1-2 hours. 19 interviewees also participated in a second interview. A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted with the support of the MAXDQA software (Braun and Clarke, 2012). The data were collected, transcribed, and analyzed in Chinese while some important quotes are then translated into English during the writing process.

By studying one particular case namely parents who enrolled their child in an Innovative School in Dali, we have revealed a complex picture of the middle class’s alternative educational choices in China. We found that while these parents strategically adopted the mainstream educational discourse, by redefining what counts as good education in their own terms, they also challenge the popular educational logic in several different aspects. And their alternative school choices are intertwined with parents’ alternative understanding of education, which is further rooted in parents’ reflection on both changing society and their own educational and career experience. We also found that the alternative education choice is neither a simple replication of the social reproduction strategies in the alternative educational field nor an indication of total departure from mainstream educational goals. Instead, there seem to be both connections and disconnections (Kraftl, 2013) in parents’ explanations and negotiation for their alternative educational choices. For these middle-class parents, opting for alternative education does not indicate “refusing educational desire” Yuan (2021). Instead, for many parents we study here, it embodies the desire to “have it both ways”. Choosing alternative schools seems to be a way for these parents to negotiate for redesigning the goals and process for the educational game. While arguing for their new educational appeals, these parents also challenge the mainstream educational regime focusing on competition, winning, and future-oriented time perspective. However, their reasoning for alternative choice is based on the reflection about what constitutes a good education and quality life for their children, rather than how education should work appropriately in a just society. In this sense, alternative education does not convey the public character as predicted by Nagata (2007). Rather, it still falls into the Chinese middle class’s customary practice of seeking an individual solution for social problems (Rocca, 2016).

Aarseth, H. (2018). Fear of falling - fear of fading: The emotional dynamics of positional and personalised individualism. Sociology, 52(5), 1087-1102. Atkinson, W. (2012). Reproduction revisited: comprehending complex educational trajectories. The Sociological review, 60(4), 735-753. Bernstein, B. (2003). Class, Codes and Control: Towards a theory of educational transmissions (Vol. 3). Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1998). The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Stanford University Press. Crabb, M. W. (2010). Governing the middle-class family in urban China: Educational reform and questions of choice. Economy and Society, 39(3), 385-402. Currid-Halkett, E. (2017). The Sum of Small Things. Princeton University Press. Fong, V. (2011). Paradise redefined: Transnational Chinese students and the quest for flexible citizenship in the developed world. Stanford University Press. Howlett, Z. M. (2021). Meritocracy and Its Discontents: Anxiety and the National College Entrance Exam in China. Cornell University Press. Kraftl, P. (2013). Geographies of Alternative Education: Diverse Learning Spaces for Children and Young People. Bristol: Policy Press. Lan, Pei-Chia. (2014). “Being Parents, Doing Class: Parenting Narratives, Child Rearing Practice, and Class Inequality in Taiwan.” Taiwanese Sociology 27:97–140. Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal childhoods. University of California Press. Nagata, Y. (2007). Alternative Education: Global Perspectives Relevant to the Asia-Pacific Region. Dordrecht: Springer. O’Connor, H., & Madge, C. (2017). Online interviewing. The SAGE handbook of online research methods, 2, 416-434. Reay, D., Crozier, G., & James, D. (2011). White middle-class identities and urban schooling. Springer. Rocca, J. L. (2016). The making of the Chinese middle class: Small comfort and great expectations. Springer. Salmons, J. (2009). Online interviews in real time. Sage. Sayer, R. A. (2005). The moral significance of class. Cambridge University Press. Uboldi, A. (2020). The indifference of distinction. Art schools and the noblesse oblige of privileged students. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(3), 346-360. Wang, Y., & R. K. Chan. (2015). “Autonomy and Control: The Struggle of Minban Schools in China.” International Journal of Educational Development 45: 89–97. Wu, J. (2019). Confucian revival and the hybrid educational narratives in contemporary China: a critical rethinking of scale in globalisation and education. Globalisation, Societies and Education. 17(4), 474-488. Xu, W., & Spruyt, B. (2022). ‘The road less travelled’: towards a typology of alternative education in China. Comparative Education, 58(4), 434-450. Yuan, X. (2021). “Refusing Educational Desire: Negotiating Faith and Precarity at an Underground Chinese Christian School.” Asian Anthropology 20 (3): 1–20.