Understanding Taiwanese Youth and Identity Formation: Culture, Politics, and Democracy

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Identity Work and Immigrant Youth

Abstract

This is a study about how Taiwanese youth construct their identity through the social-cultural context to participate in the relation of popular culture, and through the school curriculum. Under the current global information explosion, modern Taiwanese youth are exposed to an assortment of political, cultural, and historical interpretations that are instrumental and influencing in constructing their identities. Since that Taiwan has a long history of colonization by four different countries, they also brought in their own cultures and politics; especially education policies have been one of the main implements to construct “nationality”. What is considered "Taiwanese" is still a debating question, not to say the critical discourse of the relationship of Taiwanese culture and education.

Author

• Ching-Yu Lin, University of Wisconsin - Madison