Ailei Xie is Professor at the School of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China. His research focuses on educational inequality and social mobility in contemporary China. His recent work examines the moral economy of parenting and middle-class educational anxiety. He has published extensively in leading Chinese and international journals.Cheng Zhong is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Sociology of Education, Nanjing Normal University, China. He has a long-standing interest in middle-class parents’ educational involvement, aspirations, anxieties, and reflexivity. He has published in peer-reviewed, high-status international journals such as the British Journal of Sociology of Education and the International Journal of Educational Research.

• Introduction: Parenting under Pressure: Educational Anxiety and the Making of China’s Middle Class 1. Meritocratic Educational Beliefs, Achievement–Expectation Gaps, and Middle-Class Parental Anxiety 2. Navigating Educational Uncertainties: Middle-Class Parental Anxieties in China’s “Double Reduction” Era 3. Healing or Concealing: Educational Anxiety, Reflexivity, and Alternative Parenting Strategies 4. Middle-Class Education Anxiety in China: Rising Parentocracy and Institutional Uncertainty in Social Reproduction 5. Between Anxiety and Desire: Chinese Middle-Class Families’ Drive for Study Abroad 6. Competing in Inclusive Education: Immigrant Chinese Parental Involvement, Educational System Knowledge, and Parental Agency

Ailei Xie is Professor at the School of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China. His research focuses on educational inequality and social mobility in contemporary China. His recent work examines the moral economy of parenting and middle-class educational anxiety. He has published extensively in leading Chinese and international journals.Cheng Zhong is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Sociology of Education, Nanjing Normal University, China. He has a long-standing interest in middle-class parents’ educational involvement, aspirations, anxieties, and reflexivity. He has published in peer-reviewed, high-status international journals such as the British Journal of Sociology of Education and the International Journal of Educational Research.

• Introduction: Parenting under Pressure: Educational Anxiety and the Making of China’s Middle Class 1. Meritocratic Educational Beliefs, Achievement–Expectation Gaps, and Middle-Class Parental Anxiety 2. Navigating Educational Uncertainties: Middle-Class Parental Anxieties in China’s “Double Reduction” Era 3. Healing or Concealing: Educational Anxiety, Reflexivity, and Alternative Parenting Strategies 4. Middle-Class Education Anxiety in China: Rising Parentocracy and Institutional Uncertainty in Social Reproduction 5. Between Anxiety and Desire: Chinese Middle-Class Families’ Drive for Study Abroad 6. Competing in Inclusive Education: Immigrant Chinese Parental Involvement, Educational System Knowledge, and Parental Agency

Ailei Xie is Professor at the School of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China. His research focuses on educational inequality and social mobility in contemporary China. His recent work examines the moral economy of parenting and middle-class educational anxiety. He has published extensively in leading Chinese and international journals.Cheng Zhong is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Sociology of Education, Nanjing Normal University, China. He has a long-standing interest in middle-class parents’ educational involvement, aspirations, anxieties, and reflexivity. He has published in peer-reviewed, high-status international journals such as the British Journal of Sociology of Education and the International Journal of Educational Research.

• Introduction: Parenting under Pressure: Educational Anxiety and the Making of China’s Middle Class 1. Meritocratic Educational Beliefs, Achievement–Expectation Gaps, and Middle-Class Parental Anxiety 2. Navigating Educational Uncertainties: Middle-Class Parental Anxieties in China’s “Double Reduction” Era 3. Healing or Concealing: Educational Anxiety, Reflexivity, and Alternative Parenting Strategies 4. Middle-Class Education Anxiety in China: Rising Parentocracy and Institutional Uncertainty in Social Reproduction 5. Between Anxiety and Desire: Chinese Middle-Class Families’ Drive for Study Abroad 6. Competing in Inclusive Education: Immigrant Chinese Parental Involvement, Educational System Knowledge, and Parental Agency