Currently children in China start to learn English at an increasingly early age, resulting in the large number of preschool-age English learners especially in big cities like Beijing. The investments in their English learning from their parents are spectacular and indicative of their underlying ideology related to English and the imagined identities they project on their children and themselves through English learning. However, the existing literature on the L2 learner identity mostly focus on older learners such as college students and adult immigrants, whereas the low-age learners have not received adequate attention. Drawing on Norton’s (2013) definition of identity, this study aims to reveal the identity of the Beijing middle-class parents in the English learning of their preschool-age children. Analysis of the interview data of five mothers of 4-year-old children in a middle-class neighbourhood in Beijing reveals that these mothers project the imagined identity of social elite on their children, and imagine for themselves a combined identity of “mother of high-achieving children” and “career woman who has ability and determination to provide good education for children”. This dual identity as being successful both in career and in family reflects the interaction between Chinese traditional role of women as the primary educator of children (相夫教子）and their newly obtained economic independence and larger domestic power in cities of China. The first identity “mother of high-achieving children” is intertwined with educational competition pressure in China and deeply rooted in the Confucian ethics that highly value the self-sacrifice parents make for their children’s education, while the second identity “career woman who has ability and determination to provide good education for children” is shown in the decision-making in almost every aspect of the children’s English learning activity which is informed by the mother’s material resources and cultural resources such as knowledge, vision, English proficiency, past English learning experiences and ability to influence other family members.
 

identity, investment, imagined community