Transnational Family Imaginaries: Chinese Families and Study Abroad

• In Event: AERA Research in Progress Roundtable Session Three
  In Invited Roundtable: Research-in-Progress RT054 (Friday)

Abstract

This study explores how the act of a child studying abroad is imagined and negotiated as a family project by Chinese families. Drawing on qualitative data from middle- and upper-class families and study abroad consultants in China, whose children either plan to study, are currently studying, or have previously studied in the United States, it introduces the concept of “transnational family imaginaries” to describe how families collectively imagine and negotiate transnational futures through their children’s educational trajectories. Such imaginaries reveal the paradoxical nature of transnational education, highlighting the tensions between parents and children that emerge from differing expectations and the normative scripts of success and failure they navigate, particularly in relation to class, gender, and intergenerational dynamics.

Author

• Haizhao Bo, University of Chicago