This paper argues against the stereotypical image of the Chinese parent by studying how two groups of Chinese immigrant mothers, economic and knowledge immigrants, rebuilt their parenting ethnotheories after migration to the Netherlands. The results show that economic immigrants believe in natural growth and direct their children through authoritarian relationships, while knowledge immigrants see parenting as a task which demands much personal effort and an equal, transparent and close parent-child relationship. These differences are explained through a focus on both their pre-migration histories and how these are reinterpreted in the migration context.

Immigrant parents may have to rebuild their parenting knowledge after migration to keep up with their new milieu. Comparing two subgroups of Chinese immigrants, economic and knowledge immigrants, this study shows that the construction of different parental ethnotheories can be understood through the characteristics of their parenting knowledge acquisition, social networks and networking strategies. Findings from ego-network interviews with 15 economic immigrant mothers and 20 knowledge immigrant mothers indicate that the former tends to obtain practical tips and specific instructions directly from experts and acquire practical help from local, co-ethnic, small and dense networks, while the latter engages in critical peer-based learning in multicultural, open and long-distance networks. This study argues that a social network perspective can shed light on the ''black box'' of how parenting theories are reconstructed after migration.

This paper assesses whether China’s policies for providing educational support to overseas Chinese match the educational needs of current Chinese immigrants around the world. Firstly, the paper presents the different migration backgrounds of four waves of Chinese global migration in contemporary history: labor immigrants to the Global North, international students in the Global North, businessmen in the Global South and the new rich investors in the Global North. Using the concept of intergenerational contract, we found the four waves have distinct parental investment strategies in relation to their migration background, which comes along with their different educational needs. After carefully reviewing China’s policies in overseas education in terms of the assumptions, purpose and background of their implementation, we argue that these policies are outdated and serve the needs of only a limited number of Chinese immigrants due to their ignoring the variety of certain intergenerational contracts. Lastly, some specific suggestions for policy makers are given.

No abstract

Chinese kinderen opvoeden in migratie Hoe Chinese immigranten hun ouderschap herformuleren in de 21e eeuw (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. H.R.B.M. Kummeling, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 20 oktober 2020 des avonds te 6.00 uur door Lijie Zheng