A Division of Labor Perspective on Mothers Who Accompany Their Children’s Study--A Case Study of Student Guardianship among M Town’s Working Families

劳动分工视域下的陪读母亲——关于M镇高中陪读现象的分析

In modern society,female parents from different strata are involved in the process of constructing their motherhood through education.But mothers of different social classes have different ways of acting.Amid increasingly fierce educational competition,the mothers of ordinary working families move into the school neighborhood to look after their children as the college entrance examination(gaokao)approaches,and construct their“student guardian motherhood”status through their task of accompanying their children’s study.This paper takes as its subject mothers as student guardians in M Town,a typical gaokao community,providing a structural analysis of the features of such mothers’educational labor and production relations from the perspective of gender and class.Seen in the light of the family’s gendered division of labor,the educational work of student guardian mothers is a new form of housework.In terms of the content of its division of labor,the student guardian work of mothers dedicated to their children’s well-being counts as“low-end”work,an overflow from links in the division of labor in school education.On the one hand,due to their lack of cultural capital,the relationship between parents and schools is one of“accompanying”and“submission.”On the other,these parents consciously keep their distance from“quality education”and form an organic compound with the schools’efficient exam-centered education.The traditional Chinese idea of“hoping one’s sons become dragons”[achieve greatness]and the modern“child-centered”concept of nurturing jointly shape the image of student guardian mothers who work as service-oriented mothers in tandem with school education.The function of student guardians is not only the educational labor of“looking after the children”enjoined on middle-and lower-class female parents by the current division of education and social labor,but also an active and rational action strategy adopted by working class Chinese mothers striving for their children’s academic success.

在现代社会,身处不同阶层的女性家长都卷入以教育参与建构母亲身份的过程中。但是不同阶层的母亲却有不同的行动方式。在日益激烈的教育竞争中,普通劳动家庭的母亲迁居学校附近,照料面临高考的子女,并在陪读劳动中建构其“陪读母亲”身份。本研究以典型的高考陪读群落聚居地M镇的陪读母亲为研究对象,从性别和阶层视角结构化地分析“陪读母亲”的教育劳动及生产关系特征。“陪读母亲”的教育劳动是家庭性别分工下新的“家务劳动”。从分工内容看,母亲们的服侍子女生活的陪读劳动属于学校教育劳动分工链溢出的“低端”劳作。一方面,由于缺乏文化资本,家长与学校的关系是“陪”与“服从”,另一方面,她们自觉远离“素质教育”,与学校有效的“应试教育”形成有机配合;传统“望子成龙”和现代“儿童本位”养育观联合塑造了陪读母亲配合学校教育的服务型母亲形象。陪读,既是在当前教育与社会劳动分工下中下层女性家长不得不以“照料子女生活”的方式参与的教育劳动,又是中国劳动阶层母亲为争取子女教育成功所做出的能动的、理性的行动策略。