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New immigrant children’s complicated becomings: a multi-sited ethnography in a Taiwanese diasporic space

Peng, Ping-chuan
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1181924608

Abstract Details

2007, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Educational Policy and Leadership.
The coming of capitalist globalization and the so-called end of the Cold War and colonialism have brought Taiwan and its neighbors into a new era of migration. Many females from China and Southeast Asia come to Taiwan by intermarriage. These women are known in these days as new immigrants. They and their children – new immigrant children (NIC) – are now considered as the fifth ethnic group in Taiwan. Their arrival changes the demography of Taiwan and is recently perceived as an emerging challenge to the host society and its educational system. This dissertation comes from a four-year ethnographic study of NIC’s education and acculturation since 2002 when the challenge had not yet been fully recognized. Many NIC, their teachers, their neighbors, and their parents have participated in this study and shared their ideas and stories of the research topic. This study particularly focuses on six families and two older NIC from their middle school by following these participants’ everyday lives and biographies. With an interest in diverse becomings, this dissertation especially focuses on the Awen family. Based on the Awen’s stories, this study finds that all of the Awens are becoming new Taiwanese. But Taiwaneseness is not an ahistorical culturalist concept. Rather, it is historically structured and territorially polymorphous; and therefore, is multiple and complicated. In order to cope with the subjects’ multiplicity and complexity, the researcher argues for a situated interpretation of these NIC’s everyday practices. Such an interpretation should first contextualize the subjects’ diverse micro becomings into the ever-changing macro structure. Also, it implicitly calls for both a comparative study and a cultural critique of the culture of the host society. Taking becomings as an alternative foundation of multiculturalism, this study finally argues that multicultural education should attend more to how to maintain and enrich the possibility of desirable becomings. In the context of Taiwan, this also means that, however diverse becoming new Taiwanese would be, it is a project of all Taiwanese.
Patti Lather (Advisor)
Peter Demerath (Advisor)
407 p.
Taiwan; Immigrants; Diaspora; Multicultural Education; Becomings; Situated; Ethnography; Everyday Life

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Peng, P.-C. (2007). New immigrant children’s complicated becomings: a multi-sited ethnography in a Taiwanese diasporic space [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1181924608

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Peng, Ping-chuan. New immigrant children’s complicated becomings: a multi-sited ethnography in a Taiwanese diasporic space. 2007. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1181924608.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Peng, Ping-chuan. "New immigrant children’s complicated becomings: a multi-sited ethnography in a Taiwanese diasporic space." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1181924608

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.