The Family Response and Impact of the "Double Reduction" Education Reform in Chinese Compulsory Education
Xianwei Gao *
School of Foreign Languages, Xuchang University, China.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
"Reducing the burden" has always been a hot topic in the reform of basic education, and it has been also one of the issues that parents focus on. The "Double Reduction" policy clearly requires that schools, teachers, and parents must reduce the homework burden and extracurricular training burden of students in the compulsory education stage, and shall not assign homework that exceeds the level of the national curriculum standards; must not assign homework to parents or assign homework in disguise; shall not require parents to check and correct homework; teachers shall not participate in paid tutoring outside of school, etc. Although the "Double Reduction" policy is related to the transformation of family education in every family, there is still a lack of research on the family reaction and impact of the "Double Reduction" in education in Henan Province. This study conducted a survey on the implementation status, satisfaction, influencing factors and outstanding problems of students in two districts, two cities, and two counties of Xuchang City, Henan Province using SPSS 26.0 for quantitative questionnaire analysis (n=450) and NVivo 12 for qualitative interview text transcription research.
This study found the following four main aspects: 1) The degree of understanding of the "Double Reduction" policy among family members in Xuchang, Henan Province; 2) The reaction of family members in Xuchang, Henan Province to the "Double Reduction" policy and the focus on investigating the basic information of family members in Xuchang, including gender, parental titles, age, family income, and parents' and children's educational backgrounds; 3) The impact of the "Double Reduction" policy on family members in Xuchang, Henan Province, including changes in children's grades, changes in parenting styles, parent-child companionship and communication, investment in hobbies, investment in subject education, and leisure time arrangements; 4) Changes in parenting styles in Xuchang, Henan Province under the "Double Reduction" policy.
This study is conducive to understanding the inner voice of contemporary students, providing a practical basis for improving students' all-round development and releasing social vitality, improving the quality of education, strengthening the role of school education as the main battlefield, ensuring that more families reduce economic pressure, and reducing the homework burden and off-campus training burden of students in compulsory education.
Keywords: Double reduction, education reform, compulsory education, homework design