Doing responsible parenthood: Parental involvement in young children’s education in urban South Korea and Singapore

Questions around parental involvement in education, not only in in East Asia but also in a global context, are significant, given the increased concern in ‘population quality’ and the ever-growing education market. South Korea and Singapore are widely recognized for their competitive education systems and for consistently topping international student assessment tests. They also share a ballooning private tuition industry, fueled by parents’ anxiety over their children’s academic achievements. This paper explores how Korean and Singaporean parents navigate and prioritize their children’s education, in relation to notions of caregiving, childhood and academic performance. Based on ethnographic data it casts light on the multitude of strategies parents employ to handle, sometimes conflicting, ideas of proper parenthood and childhood, and the ways in which parents’ moral, emotional and material investments in their children’s education and development are intimately entangled with ideas about responsible parenting.