A Study on the Educational Anxiety Experience of Chinese Rural Primary School Students’ Mothers from the Perspective of Phenomenology

Abstract

Parental educational anxiety has become a social symptom in China, and rural primary school students’ mothers exhibit unique educational anxieties due to their special living environment. Based on interviews with 10 rural primary school students’ mothers, five typical educational anxiety experiences were selected for analysis, and themes such as rural life burden, children’s learning habits, mothers’ educational expectations, mothers’ educational methods, mothers’ emotional state, deviation between reality and expectations, homework guidance ability, mothers’ educational level, and attitudes towards children’s future development were refined. The root causes of educational anxiety among rural primary school students’ mothers include the deviation between children’s actual performance and mothers’ educational expectations, the sense of disparity under social comparison, physical and mental exhaustion caused by role overload, anxiety triggered by excessive economic burden, and a sense of powerlessness towards children’s educational outcomes. To alleviate the educational anxiety of rural primary school students’ mothers, mothers should actively adjust themselves, fathers should actively participate in their children’s education, society should create a healthy atmosphere, and schools should strengthen family education guidance.