Chinese Concerted Cultivation: The Determinants of Parenting and Its Effects on Children’s Cognitive Development From a Multigenerational Perspective

Boyan Zheng , NORC at the University of Chicago

This study uses 2010 to 2014 Chinese Family Panel Study data (N = 1137) to examine the class difference of Chinese parenting based on the concerted cultivation theory. Chinese concerted cultivation is operationalized as four dimensions: organized leisure time, family environment, supervisory parental involvement, and assistive parental involvement. The analyses are threefold. First, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) indicates that concerted cultivation is a valid construct for Chinese parenting. Second, controlling for family income, parental and grandparental education positively contributes to the use of concerted cultivation, indicating that cultural capital exerts a stronger effect on parenting than monetary capital. Third, employing Marginal Structural Model (MSM), the analysis shows that the experience of organized leisure time, good family environment, and supervisory parental involvement improves children’s cognitive abilities, while assistive parental involvement has no significant effects.The results support the cross-cultural validity of concerted cultivation theory and enriched the knowledge of Chinese parenting.

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 Presented in Session 95. Parenting and Child Development in International Contexts