Peer curation practices of parents of middle school students in China: parentocracy, responsibilisation and private tutoring

Policies regulating private tutoring in China construe peer comparison and competition as causes of student stress and exhort parents to avoid tutoring. Yet, there is little evidence about the place of student peers in the education strategies of parents who purchase tutoring. Analysing interviews with 13 parents, this study shows how tutoring was implicated in peer curation, that is, parents’ management of peer relationships in pursuit of academic achievement. Strategies involved using tutoring to enter schools with desirable student peer groups and selecting tutoring organisations with high calibre peer tutees. They also involved intervening in children’s school friendships. By these strategies, peers were construed as resources and agents who could share responsibility for a child’s academic achievement. The study contributes nuance to the concepts of ‘responsibilisation’ and ‘parentocracy’ used internationally in explanations of the tutoring boom, and evidence about the place of peers in responsibilisation dynamics.