Social Reproduction in Education: A Comparative Study of Middle-Class Parenting in South Korea and the US

Abstract

Is education the great equalizer? Education has long been considered to play a crucial role in promoting social mobility, providing individuals with equal opportunities and hope for a better life. However, numerous studies have shown that education can also serve as a means for maintaining social standing within the middle or wealthier class, who transmit privilege and advantages to the next generation through their own cultural strategy of education and parenting. Taking the cases of focal children in Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau as a reference to US middle-class parenting, and drawing on the researcher’s self-narrative of educational experience in the US and South Korea, this thesis investigates and compares how the cultural logic of middle-class parents in two different cultures permeates their children’s everyday life, accumulating transferrable and durable privilege. The comparisons are centered on three points; 1. parents’ engagement in formal learning, 2. parents’ engagement in informal learning, and 3. parents’ engagement in nonformal learning. This paper also proposes further discussion on alternative parenting strategies that could substitute for the prevailing ideology of middle-class parenting, and suggests how education institutions serve to close the educational gap between social classes.