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The first stage of this research is a questionnaire study, the sample of which consists of 148 teachers and 142 parents. It is worth mentioning that all these participant families comply with the birth control (one-child policy) and only have one child at home. In addition, all these participant families in the present study are two-parent families.

The participant teachers were randomly drawn from six typical and relatively large-scale primary schools (which have six grades, five to six classes in each grade, around 70 pupils in each class, namely, more than 2,000 students) located in the three aforementioned urban districts. It is worth noting also that the names of these primary schools are all pseudonyms.

Table 1 The Composition of the Teacher’s Sample in the Questionnaire Study Table 1.1 The Distribution of the Schools that Participant Teachers Work in

District School Name Male Female Total

Donghe District Primary School A 7 55 62

Qingshan District Primary School B 9 39 48

Kundulun District Primary School C 8 13 38 Primary School D 1 9 Primary School E 0 5 Primary School F 1 1 Total 26 122 148

As can be seen in Table 1.1, the number of participant male teachers is notably smaller than that of participant female teachers in the present study. This can be explained by the fact that there are remarkably fewer male teachers currently serving in primary schools in the Baotou area. In addition, it is interesting to indicate that male teachers tended to be more likely to show unwillingness towards taking part in the research. These participant teachers came from six different grades (17 from Grade One; 21 from Grade Two; 30 from Grade Three; 19 from Grade Four; 34 from Grade Five; and 27 from Grade Six). Their age range and subjects taught (“other subjects” in the table below refers to natural science and computer science) were summarized as follows:

Table 1.2 The Age Range and Taught Subjects of Participant Teachers ≤ 30 31-40 ≥ 41 Total Arts Chinese 30 29 6 65 English 19 3 2 24 Science Mathematics 11 11 13 35 Others 17 4 3 24 Total 77 47 24 148

As illustrated in Table 1.2, the subjects were divided into 3 age groups. Due to the fact that women start getting retired at the age of 50 in china, it made sense to divide them in the following order: women from 30 and under, 31-40 and 41 and above.

Age Subject

Worthy of mentioning is that all the primary schools that participated in this research shared the same conventionalized preference for designating a teacher who teaches Chinese or English as a class supervisor. This is not to say that teachers who teach other subjects would be unable to become a class supervisor; but means that teachers who teach Chinese or English are more likely to become one.

Class supervisor is a common position in Chinese education system. They are usually teachers themselves while working as a class supervisor at the same time. The class supervisor can be seen as a manager and administrator of one specific class who is responsible for managing all kinds of affairs and events in pupil’s daily school life. To the class and any associated work, organizing all kinds of activities for pupils in the class, directing and managing the pupils’ daily behaviours, coordinating the relationship between teachers (who teach in the class) and teachers, pupils and pupils, teachers and pupils, teachers and parents, as well as teachers and administrators.

Similar to the classroom teachers in Turkey, Chinese class supervisors usually teach and take charge of “the same group of students” from their first grade to their highest grade. Therefore, it is said that these teachers “are in frequent, long-lasting interaction with the same group of students.” Besides, the teachers who are not class supervisors usually “teach more than one group and, thus, they are in shorter interaction but with more students” (Demirkasimoğlu, et al., 2012:242).

All the participant parents were randomly selected from primary school pupils’ parents. Due to the fact that only three out of the six primary schools cited above obtained the permission from their pupils’ parents for participating in this questionnaire research, this study selected its participant parents merely from the following three primary schools. The detailed composition of the parent’s sample can be seen from the following tables:

Table 2 The Composition of the Parent Sample in the Questionnaire Study

Table 2.1 The Distribution of the Schools that Participant Parents’ Children Study in

District School Name Father Mother Total

Donghe District Primary School A 21 30 51

Qingshang District Primary School B 17 32 49

Kundulun District Primary School C 16 26 42

Total 54 88 142

Due to the fact that the average age of primary school pupils’ parents in China is relatively similar (because of children’s age for primary school education is quite similar) and is thus in a more limited range than that of teachers, the age groups of parents had therefore been divided in a slightly different way (see following Table 2.2 for details):

Table 2.2 The Age Range and Job Category of Parents

≤ 35 36-40 ≥ 41 Total

Workers (physical labour) 12 36 6 54

Office workers (brainwork) 16 41 9 66

Self-employed entrepreneur 12 8 2 22

Total 40 85 17 142

Among these parents, 42 parents were Secondary school graduate; 55 parents graduated from college; while 45 graduated from university. It is necessary to explain that the secondary school education in China consists of two stages: junior secondary school education and senior secondary school education. As has been mentioned, in most provinces and cities in China, junior secondary school education would be the last three years of Chinese nine-year compulsory education, namely, it refers to Year Seven to Year Nine.

By the end of junior secondary school education, all the students are required to take the graduation examination to graduate and obtain the graduation certificate. However, the junior secondary school graduates could be admitted to senior secondary school only if they pass the entrance exam (different from graduation examination) with marks above a certain level.

Age Job

Senior secondary school education can be regarded as the study from Year Ten to Year Twelve. All the senior secondary school education takes three years without exceptions. By the end of these three years study, similarly with junior secondary school students, students in senior secondary schools also need to take graduation examination to obtain graduation certificate; as well as take entrance examination if they hope to pursue further study in college or university.

College in China is one kind of higher education institution, which emphasises professional education rather than general education. The admission requirements for college study are relatively lower than those for university study. College education usually last two to three years and graduates would obtain a specialised diploma (college graduation certificate) after they finish their study and pass all the examinations.

University education is another type of higher education in China. It is generally considered to be more advanced and of a higher-level than college education. University education includes general education as well as professional education. Students need to spend at least four years (five years for some specific majors such as engineering or medicine-related subjects) finishing their undergraduate study before finally obtaining their degree.

Table 2.3 provides the information of the participant parents’ children including their grade and usual performance, the details of which have been presented and shown below.

Table 2.3 The Grade and Usual Performance of Participant Parents’ Children Grade 1-2 Grade 3-4 Grade 5-6 Missing data Total Behaved well 40 40 36 1 117 Behaved average 1 5 9 1 16 Missing data 4 2 3 - 9 Total 45 47 48 2 142 Children’s grades Children’s usual Performance