Paper short abstract:

This study explores Chinese immigrant families’ experience in depth and discuss how do intersectional factors such as race, gender, class and immigrant experiences shape and reshape parents’ values, beliefs and expectations, which affect their parental roles and involvement in children’s learning.

Paper long abstract:

Ethnic Chinese is the fourth largest ethnic minority in Scotland, yet current research on Chinese immigrants falls short in comprehensively exploring their parenting practices and their children's learning experiences in the Scottish context. In this research, ethnographic case study is employed. Since Chinese community in Scotland has their distinctive cultural phenomenon, applying ethnographic case study helps better understand the cultural phenomenon of this community’s experiences, and explore the complexity of the parents’ involvement in children’s learning in depth. By utilizing participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and collecting parents' journals over a six-month period with five Chinese immigrant families, the research unveils diverse strategies employed by parents in engaging with their children's learning. For example, helping with children’s homework daily, arranging after-school activities outside home weekly, and creating learning opportunities at home. While their choice of activity for children evolves gradually, which depends on the parents’ socio-economic status, immigrant experiences in Scotland, personal upbringing experiences in China, and their children’s own preference. These factors also lead to shaping parents’ expectations and their interpretation of their own parental roles, which also meanwhile affecting their involvement. The study also identifies challenges faced by parents in their involvement, particularly when navigating interactions with different cultures. The findings highlight the significance of applying the intersectional approach from the cultural lens while providing support for Chinese immigrant parents to address their involvement difficulties in children’s learning. Meanwhile, considering the intersectional factors also provides more perspectives to enriching children’s learning opportunities, which would be beneficial for their development.