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Yingyi Ma examines role of school counselors in China in new study

Jun 10, 2021

Educating the Elites: School Counselors as Education Nannies in Urban China

Yingyi Ma

Comparative Education Review, June 2021

Yingyi Ma

Yingyi Ma


"Educating the Elites: School Counselors as Education Nannies in Urban China," authored by Associate Professor of Sociology Yingyi Ma, was published in Comparative Education Review. Ma's qualitative study of 18 school counselors across eight international divisions in Chinese public high schools reveals that school counselors are like “education nannies” to the children of elites in China. This means that they work assiduously and relentlessly to provide around-the-clock services to students and their parents, who target top-ranked colleges overseas. Their work is complicated by the differences between the U.S. and Chinese school systems, so that much of their job is to shepherd anxious children and their parents through the muddy waters of the cross-cultural straits of college admissions. 08/02/21