Unpacking the Black-Box of Family Relationship ---- A Qualitative Approach to Family Dialogue in Modern China

• In Event: Unpacking Family and Ecnomic Capital in Education in China

Proposal

Chinese parents used to be well-known as ‘tiger mother’, which has been coined by harsh and strict disciplinary. However, such parenting style becomes a highly controversial topic in recent years. Scholars argued that such a cruel approach may help children to attain high levels of academic achievement, but in the long run it may hinder the development of children’s social-emotional competency, and cause failure in shaping harmonious and healthy relationships among family members. More recently, with the issue of the first Law on Family Education Promotion by the People’s Republic of China (on 23 October 2021) the theme of family education restricts no more as a family matter, but captured as a social engaged and state affair. On the one hand, this law highlights the significance of family education for promoting social and national development. On the other hand, it also reveals that there are some undeniable problems and unavoidable changes with family upbringing existed in modern China, such as the shift of Chinese family structure, the complexity of modern family relationship, and the wrong way of how parents treat and communicate with children, which need further investigation based on social scientific perspective. Current literatures on family studies in China can be summarized into three paradigms: 1) family as a static system, that is, the family has been considered as a large organization or static structure, in which the shift of family structure based on quantitative perspective has been highlighted (Zhang & Wang,2022); 2) family as role-play field, namely, the roles of children, mother and father have been investigated separately part so that to explore how each member shapes their identity within (Gan,2022); 3) family as problematic psychological space, in which issues of family of origin, the inherit of marriage-model become main concerning (Harper,1995;Avdi,2005;Rober,2005;Seikkula, Laitila,& Rober,2012). Little research has been focused on how family members mutually shape their understanding of family construction from insider perspective.
This study is an attempt to examine the process of constructing intimate relationships within the family member based on qualitative approach via a deep investigation of family dialogues. It is unarguable that dialogue with others is an important part of how humans grow up, understand themselves and create meaning in the world (Cooper, Chak, Cornish & Gillespie, 2013). Valuable dialogue is beneficial because it can generate new multifaceted and collective understandings of an issue (Ong & Buus, 2021). In our research, we consider the family dialogue as an oral conversation involving two or more family members which will determine the interaction model of family and which will further promote or hinder the shaping of harmonious family atmosphere. What strikingly important issues for us are: how family members understand the concept of ‘dialogue’? What kinds of family dialogue type have been produced in Chinese family? How individual constructs their family interaction model based on understanding of family dialogue? To approach these issues, we adopted qualitative method, in particular the qualitative content method developed by Mayring (2014), and conversation analysis developed by Sack (1992). Five nuclear families in eastern China were selected for interview and observation. All participants are middle class with a son/daughter aged around 20 years old. We visited each family at home and stayed overnight with them. Besides such in-depth participant observation, we conducted semi-structure interview with each family member on the topic of family dialogue. We argue that such a qualitative method on family research is fruitful, as we can observe and deeply understand how each family unfolds and develops dialogues in various ways.
Our study finds that:
Firstly, in modern Chinese families, 'dialogue' has been appreciated as a prerequisite for building a democratic, harmonious and intimate family atmosphere. Almost all Chinese modern middle-class families claimed that “the frequency family talk is a way to measure the closeness of family relationships, and the quality of family happiness”. Some subjects referred that their family atmosphere was relaxed and that parents and son/daughter engaged in equal dialogue as friends. This finding is extremely interesting, as it is very different form traditional families where son/daughter is expected to be obedient to parents;
Secondly, despite the acknowledgement of family dialogue as an indicator of family relationship, how son/daughter and parents understand the connotation of ‘family dialogue’ is
strikingly different. For instance, when son/daughter talked about the mis-treatment experienced (which may leave shadow emotion) in his/her childhood by parents (usually, father) with mother or father, they anticipate their parents remedy their mistakes. However, the parents will mock it as childish behavior then ignore it, which may irritate their son/daughter and left he/she has no interesting for further talk. Here, by telling the miserable childhood story (have a dialogue) son/daughter usually hopes their parents can take action or confront their mistake. However, the parents will treat the dialogue itself as an end and believe dialogue is an action of way out;
Finally, the types of family dialogue in modern China family is monotonous, which often followed by same narrative story, academic achievement or son/daughter’s material needs. For example, the dialogues always revolve around traditional topics such as food, clothing, housing and marriage. Family member nearly talk about social issues, family crisis or life confusions of son/daughter (such as love problems). This often leads the younger generation into distress and a gradual reluctance to engage in dialogue with their parents, as he/she is unable to gain inspiration and self-development from it.

Authors

• ZI YE, East China Normal University

• Hongyan Chen, Faculty of Education, East China Normal University