Responding to children's everyday transgressions in Chinese working‐class families

This study examines how working‐class mothers in the People's Republic of China respond to their young children's transgressions in everyday contexts. Twenty 4‐year‐old children and their mothers in a working‐class neighbourhood were observed in their daily routines at home. When addressing children's transgressions and socialising desirable behaviour, mothers frequently made references to other children, children's media characters, past transgressions, authority figures and quotes from the classics. Moreover, the study indicates that mothers responded differently to some of the transgressions committed by boys as opposed to girls. This study also demonstrates that children understood social and moral rules by spontaneously elaborating on and appropriating the socialisation strategies used by their mothers.