Speaker: Paul O’Connor (Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Lingnan University)
Title: "Do you realise this is a Chinese school?": White parents as ethnic minorities in the local Hong Kong school system
Dr. O'Connor |
In this Friday Seminar, Dr. O’Connor examined the case of white parents attempting to enroll their children in local kindergarten and primary schools in Hong Kong. He started by outlining the context of his research. From 2012 to 2014, Hong Kong witnessed a rise of anti-mainland sentiment, and a series of political protests took place. A localist Hong Kong identity seems to have come to the forefront. On the other hand, Dr. O’Connor’s wife is an English who grew up in Hong Kong, and their three sons were all born in Hong Kong and very strongly identify as Hongkongers. Dr. O’Connor and his wife tried to send their youngest son into a local kindergarten so that he could learn Cantonese. While he initially did quite well, after he changed to another kindergarten as the family moved, his Cantonese learning virtually stopped. These macro and micro contexts made Dr. O’Connor very interested in the current research topic.
When it comes to
schooling in Hong Kong, Dr. O’Connor pointed out that the change to Mother
Tongue Instruction in 1997 was a crucial move, as the importance of English got
diluted, while the focus on Chinese became more important while complicated and
messy. Currently, more than 300 schools use Chinese (Cantonese) as their MOI (medium
of instruction) while English is used in select, elite and designated schools.
Dr. O’Connor highlighted that international schools experience an exodus of
white parents after 1997, and currently almost half of the students in
international schools are Chinese.
While white
people compose less than 1% of the population in Hong Kong and are ethnic
minorities in this sense, their average monthly salary almost triples that of
the Hong Kong population, and is way higher than that of Thai, Pakistani,
Indonesian and Indian people in Hong Kong. This leads to the question: how do
we frame white people as ethnic minorities in the circumstance? Another
relevant background is that according to statistics, around 25% of white people
in Hong Kong, while Dr. O’Connor believed the actual percentage is far lower
than that.
So, why are more
white parents sending their children to local schools? When he was conceiving
the research, Dr. O’Connor thought that this has to do with Hong Kong identity,
while his co-researcher, Dr. Julian M. Groves, believed that it is about
preserving privileged status. They conducted semi structured interviews with 18
white parents with an average age of 44. While the number of interviewees is
relatively small, Dr. O’Connor explained that they achieve data saturation
pretty soon as these white parents had very similar experience.
Their findings
are a mix of both issues. The white parents have multiple motivations: On the one
hand, the high cost of international school can be a burden for those families
that are in a financially more precarious position, and some parents are
concerned of how their kids are going to find a job if they do not speak
Cantonese. Dr. O’Connor argued that recently there is a value judgement about international schools, criticizing them as
elitist and privileged. These parents are convinced that a more wholesome way
to raise your kids is to give them an authentic experience of the culture in the
local Hong Kong society, and sending their kids to local schools is a more
challenging but also more rewarding route to take. Dr. O’Connor argued that
this is a way for these white parents to preserve their privileged status, and
values like global citizenship and multiculturalism are emphasized. This also
shows a commitment to Hong Kong: Dr. O’Connor explained that there is a focus
on Cantonese, which is seen as more authentically Hong Kong than Mandarin and
will enable one to live a truly local life in the community. Having said that,
Dr. O’Connor clarifies that no parents they interviewed held a localist stance. These values,
however, can be co-opted and inconsistent. Dr. O’Connor discovered that the
parents can be anxious about sending their children to schools with “too many”
Pakistani, which might compromise their ability to let their children learn
Chinese. The values about
diversity and inclusion stop when they cannot get the value they want,
understandably so.
Dr. O’Connor argued that the education
system in Hong Kong offers very little guidance or support for these parents. Despite
their wealth, social capital and privilege, white people have similar
marginalization and obstacles as other ethnic minorities do in Hong Kong when
it comes to education, which leads Dr. O’Connor to the conclusion that the
schooling system is broken, and the division of local and international system
problematic.
The presentation
can be accessed: https://prezi.com/qjeiickd2yr2/do-you-realise-this-is-a-chinese-school/
Related publication:
Groves, Julian M., and Paul O'Connor.
"Negotiating global citizenship, protecting privilege: western expatriates
choosing local schools in Hong Kong." British Journal of Sociology of Education (2017): 1-15. http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/kdZgeG2T6EZTDug4x5kg/full
ReplyDeleteThanks.Best English Writing Course in Hong Kong
replica gucci shoes, combining elegant style and cutting-edge technology, a variety of styles of replica gucci scarves, the pointer walks between your exclusive taste style.
ReplyDelete