Navigating agency and compliance: Chinese parents’ strategic messaging on WeChat for cultivating home–school relations

Inspired by Bourdieu's theory of class reproduction, this article presents findings from an exploratory qualitative study of urban Chinese parents' engagement with teachers through Home–School WeChat Groups (HSWGs). Parents' strategic messaging in HSWGs, marked by subtle class differences, was shaped by hegemonic discourses yet also reflected individuals' agentic navigation within structural constraints. Confucian ethics operated as a normative framework orienting parents across class strata toward cultivating deference and teacher favour. At the same time, as entrepreneurial actors shaped by neoliberal logics, parents, especially those with greater social and cultural capital, cultivated favorable self-presentations in this digital space as a means of securing perceived competitive advantage for their children. We conclude by underscoring the importance of cultivating critical consciousness among Chinese parents to interrogate the dominant discourses that legitimise existing hierarchies.