The needs and difficulties in socializing the young in contemporary China: Early childhood education experts’ perspectives

Abstract

This study was the first of its kind in China to examine early childhood education experts’ perspectives on the urgent educational needs of preschool-aged children. Twenty-one nationally and regionally recognized experts, including university professors, practitioners and government officials, participated in interviews. They offered critical evaluations of early educational needs, pointing out the difficulties in socializing young children in the context of dramatic socioeconomic changes, the country’s single-child policy, labor migration in urbanization, and other societal forces. This study adopted a conceptual framework from cultural anthropology to present and interpret the experts’ perspectives in terms of the survival, economic and cultural goals of socialization. The experts’ perspectives suggest that early Chinese socialization should emphasize health, the acquisition of healthy habits, the development of well-socialized personalities, skills for future economic success, and the preservation of cultural beliefs and values, especially Chinese cultural emotions. These experts’ explanations constitute a call for adaptive early Chinese socialization and parenting, and offer a widely shared Chinese response to complex societal transformation in globalization.