Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2014, 2, 39-49 Published Online July 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jss http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jss.2014.27007 How to cite this paper: Hong, S.H. and Howes, A. (2014) Influences of Confucianism on Chinese Parents’ Experience with Early Childhood Education. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2, 39-49. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jss.2014.27007 Influences of Confucianism on Chinese Parents’ Experience with Early Childhood Education Shaohua Hong, Andrew Howes The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Email: shaohuahong2011@gmail.com Received 17 May 2014; revised 25 June 2014; accepted 10 July 2014 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Confucian concepts have long been seen as reflecting the main component of Chinese cultural civi- lization, which started in around 500 B.C. after Confucius passed away. There have been two sig- nificant Confucian movements. The earlier one appeared in the 12 th century, during the regime of the Song Dynasty, and the later one started in the 20 th century. These movements were both gen- erally called new Confucian or Neo-Confucian. The rise of neo-Confucian thinking affects people from various aspects, including the way Chinese parents experience their child’s early childhood education. This paper attempts to understand how Confucianism influences Chinese parents’ ex- perience with Early Childhood Education (ECE) by drawing upon a longitudinal study with a father from Urumqi, North-West of China, who sent his child to a local Confucian concept kindergarten, analysing tensions and contradictions within his experience. A series of in-depth interviews have been held with him over a period of a year, in particular relating to his selection of kindergarten and on-going perspectives. It has been revealed from this father’s testimony that his experience is a process of going through a hybrid of cultural influences, which are Confucianism, Positivism and Western concepts. It has also been proved that his constant learning of Confucianism had an un- avoidable influence on his experience. Moreover, his growth to personal maturity was also inter- twined together with Confucianism, which therefore strengthened his commitment to Confucian- ism. Keywords Confucianism, Early Childhood Education, Chinese Parent 1. Introduction Early Childhood Education (ECE) refers to the education that children obtain during the early stages of their