Before the Bell Rings: The Role of Mothers’ Social Networks in Early Educational Stratification

As many children’s first classroom experiences begin before primary school in programs outside of formal schools, disparity in educational opportunities emerges well before children enter school. Drawing on 43 in-depth interviews with middle, upper-middle, and upper-class mothers of preschoolers in South Korea, this paper examines how mothers across different social classes come to access qualitatively different educational resources for their preschool children. I find that class-specific educational norms that are shared and enforced within mothers’ insular, class-homogenous social networks shape mothers’ choices of private supplementary education programs, resulting in class-specific opportunities for preschool children. By highlighting the enforcement of social norms within mothers’ class- homogenous networks, this study shows how classroom stratification begins in early childhood—even before children start formal schooling.