An imagined paradise for children’s education? : new Chinese migrant families’ adaptation to New Zealand education system : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chinese Studies at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Abstract

This thesis explores new Chinese migrant families’ education-related experiences in New Zealand. It shows the perspectives of new Chinese migrant parents, children of new Chinese migrant parents, and local educators from New Zealand schools. The research is informed by epistemological constructivism, and an exploratory case study approach is employed to direct the research. This is a qualitative research in nature, and the research data is derived from in-depth one-to-one interview with three cohorts that are highly related to the research topic. In detail, 17 new Chinese migrant parents, 9 children of new Chinese migrant parents, and 12 local educators from New Zealand schools were invited to participate in this research. Research findings show that children’s education indeed play a critical role in driving new Chinese migrant families to emigrate from People’s Republic of China (PRC) to New Zealand, particularly for families arrived at New Zealand in the most recent decade. It is challenging for both the migrant parents and their children to navigate in the education system of New Zealand. For parents, they confront challenges in settling down in the host country, meanwhile, they are always concerned about their elderly parents living across the oceans. Further, they have to tackle the inter-generational divergence with their children in terms of Chinese language maintenance and disciplinary and subject areas they aspire their children to pursue. For children of Chinese migrant parents, apart from the inter-generational divergence they confront in the domain of their family, they also face challenges to adapt to the New Zealand education system. These challenges consist of English hurdle and teaching and learning style adaption. This research highlights what kind of teaching practices they aspire to seek in the context of New Zealand and what they feel dissatisfied with the education system of New Zealand compared with the education system of China. Chinese migrant parents’ unfamiliarity with the education system of New Zealand can lead to their dissatisfaction with the New Zealand education system, which consequently imposes challenges for local educators. Findings based on local educators’ accounts confirms new Chinese migrant parents’ persistence in choosing specific disciplinary and subject areas of study in higher education for their children. The underpinning reason for such a preference is that the parents believe that those study areas would bring a stable future to their children. In addition, local educators’ sense that Chinese migrant parents’ unfamiliarity with New Zealand education system makes it difficult to convince Chinese migrant parents to choose an alternative but realistic and pragmatic pathway (i.e. seeking polytechnic for their children’s post-secondary education). The new Chinese migrant parents are straddling the Chinese and New Zealand cultures. Their connections with two cultural settings intertwined to facilitate the formation of a repertoire of parenting approaches. While they would like to pass on the valued Chinese traditional virtues to children, they also aspire to draw from beneficial parenting approaches from other local parents. However, the actual process of adapting to the New Zealand education system can be challenging due to the habitus they get used to or the impact of the way they were raised by their parents. Findings also suggest that some new Chinese migrant families utilise migration to New Zealand as a strategy to opt out the fierce competition of NCEE (National College Entrance Exam) in China, and their stay in New Zealand is temporary and seek later transnational movements back to China or elsewhere to accompany their children for higher education. The pursuit of children’s education plays a critical role in shaping and reshaping the transnational trajectories of these Chinese migrant families. Once specific need of their children’s education is completed, these family may re-arrange their transnational lives. This thesis contributes to the studies of migrants’ integration into the host country in the dimension of education. Based on the findings, this study sheds light on the challenges that migrant families confront after migration to the host country, and provides insightful findings that educators or policymakers in the host country can draw from.