Transnational Educational Practice as a Site of Struggle: Peidu Strategies and Investment in Canada

• In Event: Understandings of Family and Community Connections

Abstract

Newly landed, sole Chinese parents accompanying their children for schooling in B.C. has become an observable phenomenon since the turn of the millennium. Their rationale of living separately from their partners for the sake of their children’s education may diverge significantly from the Western concept of family unity and functionality. To obtain a holistic view of their perceptions, practices, and perceived prospects for their children in a transnational context, conceptually we drew upon Bordieuan notions of habitus and field (1977), along with his form of cultural capital (1986), Coleman’s notion of family capital (1990; 1991), and Levitt and Schiller’s (2004) transnational social field, through conducting an instrumental case study of 15 sole Chinese parents and their 16 children.

Authors

• Guofang Li, University of British Columbia

• Caroline Locher-Lo, University of British Columbia