How Social Class Shapes Chinese Immigrant Families' After-School Educational Experience Regarding Christian Norms and Practices

• In Event: 72.040 - Education and Religious Identities

Abstract

Drawing on a four-year critical ethnography, this study examines how socioeconomic class dynamics shapes Chinese immigrant families’ after-school activities that relate to Christian norms and practices in a Midwestern town. Focusing on the relationship between domination and subordination in religious norms, the study found that Chinese immigrant children had to accommodate the local religious discourse in order to assimilate into the culture of the town. Social class played a critical role in how much flexibility families had when deciding whether to access church activities. Given the important role informal educational practices have in helping immigrant children adjust to new cultural contexts, this research provides implications for education in that class-disadvantaged immigrant children have limited educational opportunities besides formal education.

Author

• Yu-Ling Hsiao, Oklahoma State University-Stillwater