Chinese-Australian Families Research Articles

An adult daughter's identity construction: Membership categorization analysis of daily Chinese-Australian family talk

This paper focuses on identity construction in family discourse, with the objective to investigate how identities of an adult daughter (the older sister/adult child at home) are made salient in and through family talk. Guided by Harvey Sacks's (1995) work on membership categorization combined with sequential analysis (Stokoe, 2012), the study examines 15 h of audio-recorded conversations between a mother and her two children in a Chinese-Australian family. Two specific identities of the adult daughter – a home educator and a child – are discussed in this paper where the findings reveal that such identities are invoked and negotiated by participants via their self- and other-categorization. The adult daughter's self-positioning becomes visible in interaction through her turn design and category-implicative social actions, which orient to a set of category-packaged rights, responsibilities, and attributes that index a particular category. However, the invoked memberships are not only accepted but also challenged by other family members in following turns, which reflects how the adult daughter is positioned by them during different family activities. By exploring an adult daughter's membership categorization in family talk, this study contributes to the under-researched topic of identity construction in Chinese-Australian/Chinese family discourse.

Chinese Australian Daughters’ Experiences of Educational Opportunity in 1930s–60s Australia

Interviews with Chinese Australian women highlight the impacts of cultural and gendered identities on the educational opportunities and achievements of daughters in 1930s to 1960s Australia. Some women recalled being prepared as children for their later role as dutiful wives – tasked with domestic duties, working in family businesses, given limited educational opportunities, and made aware of their role to be ‘married off’. Others recalled equal treatment with their brothers and being encouraged to strive for educational success. This variety of experience points to the diversity of Chinese Australian families and the ways in which Confucian/patriarchal systems were negotiated within them.

A Chinese Australian family’s language use and attitudes

Abstract This paper presents a qualitative case study of a Chinese Australian family’s multilingual experiences in Melbourne. Couched in the framework of family language policy, I examine language shift patterns and mother tongue attitudes and analyse reasons and consequences. The findings show that the first generation uses Mandarin for general family communication, while relegating regional Chinese to functions that are, typically, private and familial and for use with older generations. The second generation uses English the most. While their Mandarin use is enhanced through community-based schooling and can be activated depending on the communicative environment, regional Chinese does not play an active role. This nested, hierarchical ecology of language shift with two dominant language constellations causes parental confusion about the children’s mother tongue and problematises grandparent-grandchild communication with a possible decrease of family intimacy.

Chinese Australian women’s ‘homemaking’ and contributions to the family economy in White Australia

ABSTRACTThis paper draws upon qualitative interview data to present a historical geography of ‘homemaking’ and economic activity among Chinese Australian women during the White Australia Policy era. An analysis of interview material indicates that some women dedicated their lives to unpaid work in the home, while other women worked in family businesses in subordinate positions. In some instances, Chinese Australian women took on more responsibility in these businesses in ways that challenged the ‘front’/‘back’ gender divide. This economic participation reflected the need for Chinese Australian women to contribute to the survival of their families and experience roles and subjectivities that challenged the patriarchal division of gendered labour and space. This complex historical geography of Chinese Australian family economies in the White Australia era therefore challenges traditional feminist assertions that ‘the home’ is a universal site of female oppression and Orientalist assumptions that Confucian family systems were practised uniformly by all overseas Chinese.

Revisiting the occupational aspirations and destinations of Anglo-Australian and Chinese-Australian high school students

Evidence from Australia lends support to the “Asian high achieving syndrome” in Chinese-Australian students and “self-deprivation syndrome” in Anglo-Australian students. Applying ethnographic case studies approach for doctoral thesis the author collected data on a longitudinal basis from homes and school of these students. All of these students attended the same school located in a predominantly middle class suburb of Perth Metropolitan area in Western Australia. Chinese-Australian families had settled in Perth from Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, whereas Anglo-Australian families had been residing in Perth for three generations. Impetus to revisit these students (now young adults with their own families) 10 years later came from an urge to test the validity of the prediction the author had made in the concluding chapter of his doctoral thesis. The author had claimed that “if Anglo-Australian parents keep on dwelling in the era of 1950s and 1960s and do not change their laid-back attitude about education, their children could eventually be under-privileged in their own country”. Ten years later, the author undertook a follow-up study on these young adults from six of the eight original families in order to find out their occupational destinations and future aspirations. Data for the follow-up study were collected from these young adults and their parents. These research cases were interviewed twice, each time approximately for two hours and their parents were interviewed once for two to three hours. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of the follow-up study which reveals a remarkable relationship between the attitude towards schooling and academic performance with their subsequent occupational destination.

The succession decision in Chinese–Australian family businesses: An exploratory study

This article explores the factors used to make succession choices as ethnic Chinese family business founders integrate into their host country, Australia. An empirical study of six Chinese–Australian family businesses was used to analyse what factors influence the succession decision-making process. Results show three broad factors influenced the founders’ decisions, including the aspirations and visions of the business founders, cultural and individual values shaped in the integration process, and the options that are available for succession. Findings challenge the anticipated option of intergenerational succession, with its emphasis on family-oriented collectivistic values as expectations. It provides future support for considering how the cultural value orientation (collectivistic, individualistic, or transitional) has impacted on the founder’s succession choices. Further research is required to understand how the flexible, changing, situational founder’s succession intentions are manifested among family businesses in cultural transition.

Australian-Chinese families caring for elderly relatives

ABSTRACTCaring for elderly relatives has predominately been explored from the standpoint of the needs and experiences of the hegemonic culture in multicultural countries like Australia, Canada and the United States of America. Australia, in particular, has paid scant attention to cultural and linguistically diverse groups in relation to caring for the aged. In this paper we focus on Chinese-Australian families caring for elderly relatives. We explore the traditional value of filial piety which is said to underpin social norms and beliefs about caring for aged parents in Chinese cultures. Specifically we draw on four in-depth interviews with Chinese-Australian care-givers of elderly relatives to identify meanings of filial piety and practices of filial piety. Findings indicate that while filial piety is still an important value in caring for the aged, meanings about how to practise filial piety are changing and vary across families.

‘Citizens of fate’: Blood, disease and the question of mortality in Sadness by William Yang

William Yang’s performance Sadness challenges essentialised categories of identification by juxtaposing tales of his Chinese-Australian family with the journey of friends from his community dying of AIDS-related complications and infection. In doing so, Yang foregrounds the threat of mortality that attempts to stabilise identity politics for the ‘nation’. In the age of global media Yang resists multi-modal approaches to his medium to reclaim the theatrical space of narration. As a consequence, Yang’s Sadness affords an opportunity to rethink the imperatives intrinsic to the classification of social subjects in terms of racial, sexual and reproductive practices, and the relationship of the citizen-body to modes of cultural representation.

How do Immigrant Parents Support Preschoolers' Bilingual Heritage Language Development in a Role-Play Context?

THE RESEARCH REPORTED HERE is part of an overall study drawing upon a Vygotskian cultural–historical approach to explore Chinese-Australian families' pedagogy in supporting children's bilingual heritage language development. Imagination is a psychological process for the child, where the development of speech is linked to the development of imagination as a higher cultural function (Vygotsky, 1987a). This study gives insight to the links between imagination in play and language development through play pedagogy at home. In the larger study, from which this paper draws its data, the methods of data generation included video interviews and observations with three families. The focus was on interactions that contributed towards language development in the home context. Drawing on Vygotsky's (1987a, 2004b) theory of imagination in children's play, Fleer's (2010) dialectical model of play, and Kravtsova's (2009) subject positioning theory, this paper specifically investigates parents' interactive support of children's bilingual heritage language development in role-play. The paper analyses the play experience of a four-year-old girl, Lin, and her father in a park, in order to discuss the importance of imagination in adults' instructions within the child's zone of proximal language development through play. This provides the foreground for approaching language development within a dialectical process of collective and individual imagining in play. It is argued that Lin's father uses play as a pedagogical tool to support Lin's bilingual heritage language development.

HOME-SCHOOL LINK A KEY FACTOR TO EXPLAIN AN IMPRESSIVE PERFORMANCE OF CHINESE-AUSTRALIAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

This study focused on congruency of culture of home and school of children from Chinese- Australian families as a major factor in their academic success. Qualitative approach was used for uncovering three key things, namely, 1) conditions and interactions at home; 2) children’s behavior and interaction in classroom; 3) children’ activities after school hours and at weekends. The approach considered to be appropriate to capture what teachers, parents and children say and do as a product of how they interpret the complexity of their world. Data collected by using ethnographic techniques, mainly participant observation and conversational interviews. There were seven children from five Chinese-Australian families residing in Perth metropolitan area involved in the study. The families immigrated from Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Analysis indicated that Chinese-Australian parents pushed their children far beyond their limits in their drive for academic excellence. They made their home suitable for studying and ensured continuity between homes and school. Impulse control, deferment of short term gratification, effort/hard work, and scholastic achievement were Chinese cultural values implanted by the parents. Chinese- Australian children met most of their teachers’ demands. Consequently, their interactions with their teachers were in more positive ways. Key words: Chinese-Australian families, impressive performance students

Challenges of inter-generational succession in the Chinese Australian family business

Chinese immigrants have long been a feature of Australia's population mix and play a critical role in the country's economic activities, with particular contribution by Chinese family-owned businesses. Although these family-owned businesses can generate and significantly improve the financial wealth which stems from the family's original fortune, most Chinese family businesses are relatively short-lived, rarely extending beyond one generation. The high mortality rate in family businesses points primarily to the challenges of management succession. There is recognition that inter-generational succession is essential for both the profitability of Chinese family businesses and the welfare of the family as a whole. However, the intentions of inter-generational pursuit of continuity can be subject to the different goals and interests of key participants, as well as the surrounding context in which the business develops. This paper presents issues pertaining to the inter-generational diversity that might challenge the business continuity of Chinese family businesses, through the identification of how individuals perceive, relate to and initiate the succession process.