ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly reviews the literature on parental involvement. It explains the study within cultural and social reproduction. The chapter explores China's modernization, including the discourse on suzhi and peasants in China, and outlines recent educational reforms. It demonstrates that poor rural parents in Gansu engage in invisible forms of parental involvement, such as sacrificing parents time and energy to work extra jobs and do housework, establishing social relationships to support their children's schooling, and migrating with their families to better academic environments. Bourdieu theorizes that parents with little cultural capital are limited in their ability to support their children's schooling. China has implemented several major changes to the hukou system that allow for more migration of rural residents. China's current policy interest in promoting increased parent-teacher relations has opened up a space to consider rural parental involvement in their children's schooling. The chapter concludes the mechanism of how rural parents strategize their involvement in their children's schooling.
