Middle-class cultivation out of tune? Challenges to intensive parenting in Singapore

Abstract

This article explores how conceptions of responsible parenting are re-negotiated in present-day Singapore. It discusses how policy changes in the pre-school area have affected parental practices and notions of morally worthy parenting. Pre-school reform promoting children’s holistic development and less intensive parenting is part of a wider process of education reform, which has been on-going for the last 20 years. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, we examine how parents and pre-school teachers negotiate these changes in the context of making pre-school children ready for formal schooling. Our main finding is that the changes associated with reform have created a situation, in which well-educated middle-class parents are increasingly insecure when it comes to education. Rather, they are caught off-balance and are struggling hard to figure out which modes of parenting will be counted as responsible and will turn out to be rewarding in terms of their children’s educational success and wholesome development.