Parents’ values and children’s academic achievements: Hong Kong parents’ choices of early childhood education.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge on values held by parents and teachers in Hong Kong and looks at the impact these values have on parental choices regarding kindergarten choices for their children. The research confirms the agreement on most values held by parents and teachers in a globally constructed value system within Hong Kong considering historical Confucian values and more recently, in a historical context, shared western values. The research further includes the context of values as discussed in literature, and the reality experienced from the viewpoint of parents and teachers regarding these values. Values highlighted by participants in the study were honesty, respect, being a good friend, as well as having an enjoyment for learning, and wider social and personal values.
The rationale of this study was to examine if there was a disconnect between the concept of academic attainment in Hong Kong early years education, which is prioritised in research literature, and the findings of this study. What emerged from these findings shows that teachers and parents of children in Hong Kong hold stronger feelings towards other features of learning and development, rather than academic attainment.
The study used a mixed method approach. The data used to gain a thematic analysis came from the views of 66 teachers and 38 parents, which were obtained via questionnaires and from 6 parents who took part in one-to-one interviews, which were carried out online. The findings suggest that the values highlighted by the teachers and the parents in both sets of questionnaires and interviews correlate with each other, however this offers a different perspective with the literature explored within this thesis.
The study is a small-scale study and therefore we cannot generalise the data, however this study reflects and shares that parents have two main choices to make regarding their child’s education, do they choose personal values or academic values for their children’s future? This study has found that choices made by parents for their children are strongly related to Confucian and Hong Kong cultural principles of gaining knowledge and the belief that culturally academic attainment is seen as more important than personal values. This study has presented valuable information which can give insight into the values of parents and how these can be incorporated within the early years education systems in Hong Kong to enable parents to make different choices for their children.