이 연구는 학부모들이 자녀교육과 관련하여 형성하는 교육지원활동의 특성이 어떠하며, 그러한 특성이 어떤 사회 문화적 맥락에서 형성되는가를 살펴보고자 하였다. 연구의 방법으로는 관련문헌 에 대한 분석을 바탕으로, 중학교에 재학하고 있는 자녀를 둔 광주·전남지역의 학부모 17명을 대상 으로 한 면담조사를 실시하여, 학부모의 자녀교육지원활동의 특질과 그 사회문화적 맥락을 분석하 였다. 연구의 결과, 학부모문화가 표출되는 사회문화적 맥락으로는 학벌주의, 고착화된 대학서열체제와 이기주의적 경쟁의 심화, 공교육에 대한 사교육의 우위성을 들 수 있으며, 이들이 계층간 격차의 심화에 따라 각기 다른 형태의 학부모문화를 형성하고 있는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 맥락에서 나 타나는 학부모문화는 ‘사교육 지향성’에서는 질과 양, ‘엄마 주도성’에서는 관리적 통제와 자율, ‘정 보 의존성’에서는 폐쇄성과 개방성이라는 형태로 상류계층과 하류계층간에 각기 다른 특성을 보이 는 것으로 나타났다.
The purposes of this study were 1) to identify cultural characteristics of educational activities which parents created for their children, and 2) to find out how those characteristics were formed under what kinds of socio-cultural context. To meet the goals of this research, literature review and interviews were conducted. Interviews were conducted in Gwangju and Chonnam area. 17 informants participated in the interviews and the collected data were analyzed. According to the study, the socio-cultural contexts of parental culture are summarized as follows; First, A core element of parental culture was excessive valuing of academic background; parents supported children's education as a way to conform to the trend of excessive valuing of academic background. Their 'supporting strategies' were different depending on the social status. Second, The more parents correlated social success with educational success, the more excessive valuing of academic background had influenced the culture. Parental supporting strategies tended to be polarized depending on the social status. Third, Parents worked individually or selfishly rather than working together with other parents in terms of education for their children. This study found out that the cultural themes, which inferred tacitly or explicitly with principles recurrent in the domains of supporting activities mentioned above, are 'private education oriented', 'initiating by mothers', and 'depending on information'. It is important to note that parental culture was segmented in accordance with social status. Therefore higher class parental culture can be characterized as strong 'private education oriented', intensive 'initiating by mothers' and 'private control on information'. In contrast, lower class parental culture can be characterized as weak 'private education oriented', 'child's autonomy', and 'opened approach on information.'