15.07.2019Taiwan Studies Lecture Series: Global Parenting in Taiwan: How Globalization Shapes Family Lives Across Class Divides

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Pei-Chia LAN (National Taiwan University)

Date and Time

July 15, 2019, 6 - 8 pm

Location

University of Zurich, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, Room RAA G15, Rämistrasse 59, 8001 Zürich

Abstract

In her new book "Raising Global Families: Parenting, Immigration, and Class in Taiwan and the US" (Stanford 2018), Prof. Lan uses parenting as an empirical lens to examine cultural transformation and persisting inequality in the contexts of globalization and immigration. This talk focuses on the distinct strategies of "global parenting" among Taiwanese families across the socioeconomic spectrum. Professional middle-class parents employ divergent educational strategies to pursue cosmopolitan parenting: some arrange international school and bilingual programs to prepare their children for the imminent future of global competition, while others choose Western-influenced alternative curriculums to escape the tradition of rote learning and academic pressure. Globalization touches the lives of working-class families in very different ways. Taiwanese men, who suffer from rising economic insecurity due to capital outflow and labor inflow, seek wives from China and Southeast Asia. These immigrant mothers’ cultural heritage and transnational connections are hardly recognized as valuable assets until the government encourages investment to Southeast Asia in the recent “New Southbound Policy.”