Stanford University Press Raising Global Families: Parenting, Immigration, and Class in Taiwan and the US

Public discourse on Asian parenting tends to fixate on ethnic culture as a static value set, disguising the fluidity and diversity of Chinese parenting. Such stereotypes also fail to account for the challenges of raising children in a rapidly modernizing world, full of globalizing values. In Raising Global Families, Pei-Chia Lan examines how ethnic Chinese parents in Taiwan and the United States negotiate cultural differences and class inequality to raise children in the contexts of globalization and immigration. She draws on a uniquely comparative, multisited research model with four groups of parents: middle-class and working-class parents in Taiwan, and middle-class and working-class Chinese immigrants in the Boston area. Despite sharing a similar ethnic cultural background, these parents develop class-specific, context-sensitive strategies for arranging their children's education, care, and discipline, and for coping with uncertainties provoked by their changing surroundings. Lan's cross-Pacific comparison demonstrates that class inequality permeates the fabric of family life, even as it takes shape in different ways across national contexts. Review "Lan's insightful and skillfully-written book offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of Taiwanese families in Taiwan and the United States who endeavor to raise upwardly-mobile children. This is a must-read for all who seek to understand family, class, and mobility in the age of global capitalism." Author: Carolyn Chen, University of California Source: Berkeley " Raising Global Families dispels the myth of the tiger mom, telling a compelling story of parenting that is less about unique cultures than about the forces of globalization. Through thoughtful and meticulous analysis of ethnographic data in transnational contexts, Pei-Chia Lan demonstrates how Chinese parents in Taiwan and the United States cope with their intensified feelings of ambivalence and insecurity and how this surfaces in childrearing. This study advances the understanding of parenting beyond the family and local milieus." Author: Min Zhou Source: University of California, Los Angeles "This book is a worthy study not only for "global families" but also for all families.Highly recommended." Author: CHOICE "Pei-Chia Lan makes an extraordinary contribution to contemporary scholarship on parenting strategies by demonstrating how ethnic culture and social class interact within four different social groups spanning two geographic regions. As she does, she illuminates complex processes such as globalization and transnationalism, making this a superb book for classroom use." Author: Margaret K. Nelson Source: author of Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times From the Author Pei-Chia Lan is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at National Taiwan University. She is the author of Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan (2006), which won the ASA Distinguished Book Award. About the Author Pei-Chia Lan is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at National Taiwan University. She is the author of Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan (2006), which won the ASA Distinguished Book Award.