'Tutored within an inch of their life': morality and old' and new' middle class identities in Australian schools

This paper documents the self-positioning of a segment of middle class parents, whom we call community-minded', as they distinguish themselves from pedagogies and parenting practices for education often associated with tiger parenting' and Asian' practices in Australia. Increased public interest has scrutinised the growth of high achieving Asian-Australian students and commonly depicts Asian success' as being about ethnicity and/or race. As academics argue, such essentialism validates existing capitals among middle-class parents and feeds into a politics of racial hostility. Building on this literature, we focus on this site of tension as one of a struggle between old' and new' middle classes. Drawing on a small study in Sydney NSW, we deal with a fraction of the middle classes for whom particular educational strategies are disavowed as part of their self-positioning as moral, community-minded' citizens. This is analysed as a response to broader changes across education, the economy and migration trajectories which have emerged alongside what Watkins and Noble call the ethnicisation' of academic achievement. These tensions provide insight into how old' and new' middle classes are attempting to co-exist in Australian schools, as global political and economic transformations are negotiated within the micropolitics of parenting and cultural constructions of childhood.