Whose culture has capital?

In no previous generation have so many educated Chinese women with young children immigrated to western countries. Whereas most of the existing research literature in this field tends to study Chinese immigrants in general, this book focuses on a group of skilled female migrant mothers in New Zealand. It aims at understanding the dilemmas and ambiguities particularly concerning skilled female migration: although they belonged to a privileged group in their native land, these women become members of a visible minority in the new country. Middle-class professionals in their birth country, they experience downward social mobility when taking on unskilled jobs in their adopted land; besides having to shoulder heavier domestic workloads as the traditional support for childcare is no longer available in New Zealand. Centering on their mothering practices, this book provides detailed descriptions of how mothers deploy various strategies to maximise the benefits for their children's education amidst changes and readjustments after migration.

Autorentext
A former practitioner and lecturer in Early Childhood Education, Bin Wu graduated with the degree of Doctor of Education from Auckland University of Technology in 2010.

Inhalt

Contents: Putting the conceptual framework in context - Early childhood: A context with multiple fields - Women and children - Women's work and professionalism - Te Whaariki: The high ideal and its practices - Diversity in early childhood education - Transnationalism: What is it really? - Daily communication and dealing with concerns - The portfolio: A critique - The Mothering work - reinforcing, extending and bridging - Language and learning languages - «The Family» - Two generations - Gendered parenthood - Mothering and paid work.