Chinese Adolescents in Britain and Hong Kong

Identity and Aspirations

Gajendra Verma, Yu-Man Chan, Christopher Bagley, Sylvia Sham, Douglas Darby, Derek Woodrow, George Skinner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429866241
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Student Life

First published in 1999, this book is based on several years work in Hong Kong and Britain, both before and after the absorption of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong into the People's Republic of China in 1997. The initial chapters review the history of Chinese people in Britain; specific aspects of Chinese culture and personality; Chinese educational systems; and the recent history of migration from Hong Kong to Britain. The central part of the book compares three samples of adolescents (about 350 in each of the three cultures): Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong; Chinese adolescents in Britain, with sub-divisions of those who have grown up in Britain and those recently arrived; and Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong. All of the 1, 050 respondents completed measures of self-concept, identity, educational aspirations and views about the family, society and the future. The final part of the book contains extended qualitative accounts from personal interview with a sub-sample of Chinese adolescents in Britain and concludes with proposals for educational and policy changes which can accommodate the aspirations of Chinese adolescents in the British educational system.

1  The Context and Background of the Study

Introduction

The subject of a study has no objective existence. Its formulation grows from the interplay of the curiosity of the researcher, or researchers, and some aspect of the observed world about them. In this chapter we briefly outline the concerns which led us to attempt this study, describe how it was that its foci were established and how its general shape emerged.

In 1985 the Home Affairs Committee observed that:

… remarkably little research has been carried out into the Chinese community, and the lack of reliable information extends even to its size and distribution (HAC, 1985).

Since that time there have been some educational studies of Chinese children and adolescents in Britain, but much more needs to be learned about how these children are experiencing life in Britain.

The 1991 Census, and the 1994 census of ethnic minorities have at least provided some background information. It is now known that there are about 200,000 people of Chinese ethnic origin living in Britain. Compared with other, more visible minority groups it is a not inconsiderable number. To put the number of Chinese people in Britain in perspective, it is almost identical to the Bangladeshi population and approximately one third the size of the Pakistani or Afro-Caribbean communities. In the next chapter, we give an account of the way the Chinese community in Britain grew between 1851 and 1991. At this stage we point to the two crucial differences between the Chinese community and those formed by settlers from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan (NCWP). These can be summarised in a few words: time and patterns of settlement.

Those arriving from NCWP countries, for reasons both complex and varied from one group to another, tended to form relatively compact settlements in well defined areas of Britain’s cities. This allied to their visibility, made them a focus of interest from neighbouring indigenous populations, Local Authorities, and researchers, not least because of the racism which these visible minorities were subject to. The Chinese community was by contrast, diffused throughout Britain so that, with the exception of London, Manchester and Liverpool no immediately recognisable ‘Chinese districts’ existed. Even in those cities, the Chinese districts were concerned largely with businesses and social activities: few Chinese people actually lived in these ‘China Towns’.

Chinese men first started to settle, though not necessarily permanently, in the very early years of the nineteenth century and their numbers grew undramatically but steadily until, within the last 30 years and ending with the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1971 there was a marked acceleration in their arrival. This contrasts with the main process of settlement by NCWP migrants who arrived in larger numbers and in definable waves, over relatively short periods of time between 1950 and the 1970s. There was of course a significant African population in Britain during late Tudor times and again in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. However, this nineteenth century African population was wholly absorbed into the general British European¹ working class population through intermarriage.

Little academic work has been carried out on the needs of Chinese children. The Swann Report (DES, 1985) observed that:

The educational needs of children from this group have not tended to be the focus of as much attention as the needs of other Asian or West Indian children …. We were met by two very different interpretations of their situation – firstly, that they were ‘ideal’ pupils who had no problems and represented a ‘success story’ amongst ethnic minority groups, or, alternatively, that they were a ‘forgotten minority’: invisible pupils whose needs remained unrecognised and thus unmet by schools.

That Swann had said this more than a decade ago, allied to the fact that little substantial research had been undertaken since, encouraged us to believe that research was now long overdue though other factors contributed to this belief. First among these was our perception of the socio-psychological situation of Chinese children in Britain. The 1991 Census made it clear that the majority of youngsters in schools were the children of first generation Chinese settlers. From this it followed that they were growing up in homes which were likely to be traditional in character whilst attending schools operating according to very different principles.

In the final chapter, we reflect on the results of this study, and discuss the nature of the Chinese family. Here we simply record that Chinese parents often adopt child-rearing practices based on Confucian precepts of filial piety and obedience. These emphasise the duty owed by children to their parents and justify what to Western eyes appears to be autocratic powers within the family exercised by the father.

We were tempted to assume that the daily transition between homes operating on these principles and schools whose ethos was informed by western European beliefs and practices, might result in cultural conflicts for these young people with all that this implied for their psychological growth and development. It also seemed possible that these conflicts might be exacerbated by the fact that these Chinese youngsters would be in a position to observe the differences between their own homes and those of their European British peers. Again, the differences were profound. Where the traditional Chinese child owed unquestioning obedience to his or her father, he or she would be able to see the way that most British families operated on a system of continuous negotiation between the generations, and perhaps make unfavourable comparisons.

However tempting it was to make these assumptions, there was little evidence to support them. The differences between the two communities, the British-Chinese and the European British, were not self-evident: but their reality could readily be tested. What was unproven also was whether assumptions that existed would give rise to ‘conflict’ in the minds of British- Chinese adolescents, with perhaps a harmful effect on identity and self esteem. Alternatively, the family system itself might buffer the self esteem of Chinese children and adolescence in making difficult social and psychological transitions in British society.

Allied to this concern was the question of whether there is evidence to show that British-Chinese adolescents were losing their cultural heritage as a result of growing up in a society whose cultural roots were firmly embedded in the western European tradition.

In seeking to discover an answer to these questions we were not adopting a judgmental stance. Many British Europeans believe, naively, that the way forward to social equality and stability depends on the willingness of ethnic minority groups to discard their cultural heritages and accept those of the majority community as their own. This view is implicitly racist in assuming that ‘strange’ religious and cultural practices should be discarded, and explicitly racist when groups who have done so continue to be discriminated against. Ideologically, we argue that tolerance of different religious and cultural practices is easily practised in a liberal, plural society and indeed will enrich the society which is able to practise such tolerance. One aim in this study was to discover if young British-Chinese are in fact losing their distinct cultural identity.

It seemed likely that some evidence on this question could be obtained from assessing their general self-esteem. If the British-Chinese adolescents were engaged in a struggle over their cultural identity in which they were faced with the prospect of discarding the beliefs and practices which had shaped their parents’ lives, this might affect their views about themselves. Additionally, such an assessment might also indicate the degree of robustness with which they were dealing with their experience of racism.

It is unfortunate that, in the public’s perception, the Chinese community in Britain is relatively free from racist persecution. Ample evidence exists to the contrary (Phillpotts, 1990; Seabrook, 1987; CRE, 1988): the Chinese community shares with other ethnic minority groups the widespread experience of racism. What is of interest is the effect of racism on their psychological well-being and their assessment of their worth as people. Racial assault, whether it be as trivial as name-calling by one small child to another or physical assault carried out on adults by adults, is characterised by a sense of superiority on the part of the racist. It is an attack on the ethnic and cultural identities of the victim. If racism were part of the lives of young British-Chinese, how was it affecting their psychological growth?

Finally, we were well aware of the pattern of settlement adopted by the Chinese community in Britain. Given the economic niche (take-away restaurants) which they have come to occupy, they had little choice but to spread themselves thinly through the British European majority. The nature of their work and other factors such as their limited ability in English inevitably resulted in social isolation for them and their children. This was particularly true for the children in their primary schools when they were likely to find themselves the only Chinese child in the school, perhaps unable to socialise with their classmates because they spoke little or no English. Although matters might improve when they arrived in their secondary schools – there were more likely to be fellow students from other Chinese families and they were, by that time, more fluent in English – their opportunities for forming friendships with other British-Chinese youngsters were still circumscribed.

It was these considerations which led us to propose a study, the main focus of which was the cultural identity of British-Chinese adolescents. By adopting this as the primary focus it would enable us to test the validity of the assumptions discussed above, all of which were closely related.

Thus, growing out of these interests and assumptions, the outlines of the study began to take shape. There would be three groups of respondents drawn from the British-Chinese, European British and Hong Kong Chinese populations respectively. Two of the groups would consist of youngsters drawn from members of dominant cultures and the third would come from a minority group growing up in a culture very different from that of their parents and them. At that stage, our expectations were that the British-Chinese group would provide us with findings that differed significantly from those of the other two, reflecting their position as a transitional ethnic minority. We anticipated that there would be evidence of what might be called ‘cultural stress’ with the young British-Chinese being perhaps ambiguous about the attractions of British cultural norms and those of their parents.

Associated with this there might be indications of reduced self-worth and some loss of personal and cultural identity. There was also the possibility that their educational aspirations would be depressed. Finally, as a group subjected to racism, they were under additional stress. By comparing the findings from this group with those from their White British and Hong Kong peers, some estimate could thus be made of the nature and severity of their problems. Proposals could then be made as to how they might be helped, and what social and educational policies to advocate.

In a later chapter devoted to the design of the study we show how these broad outlines were translated into the more detailed research strategies. Since self-esteem and cultural identity are concepts at the heart of this study, a subsequent chapter is devoted to a discussion of them.

Chinese Educational Styles

In order to understand the educational attitudes and aspirations of Chinese parents of Chinese youth in Britain, as well as the early educational experiences of some of the youth who came to Britain quite recently, we must understand the traditional educational system of Chinese culture in general, and of Hong Kong in particular. These educational attitudes and aspirations are crucial aspects of the identity of many Chinese children.

According to Murphy (1987):

Hong Kong students display almost unquestioning acceptance of the knowledge of the teacher or lecturer. This may be explained in terms of an extension or transfer of the Confucian ethic of filial piety. Coupled with this is an emphasis on strictness of discipline and proper behaviour, rather than an expression of opinion, independence, self-mastery, creativity and all-round personal development (p. 43).

In contrast, the Chinese school student in England will experience an emphasis on the need for investigation, creative thinking, debate, discussion, group and project work, in other words, self-responsibility for his or her own learning and the formulation of ideas and knowledge. In extreme contrast, the Confucian influence on the development of a Chinese cultural identity, and thus on learning styles passed down through the family, goes back many centuries. The well known Confucian phrase that:

… those who labour with their brain should govern those who labour with their brawn …

gave the development of learning the highest priority.

In Chinese culture the individual practising the values of filial piety and industrious scholarship is central to the dynamic process of a continuing family lineage and the specific ancestry of one’s family; each individual is part of ethnic continuity and is defined within relationships (Tu Wei-Ming, 1985). As a result everyone is expected to behave in an exemplary fashion and in accordance with an ascribed role (e.g. father, mother, teacher, student, worker, Party member, etc.). Traditional culture and its system of ordered roles are extremely important. Standards of behaviour and self-development are determined by clearly defined societal roles and shared, subject to sometimes rigidly enforced cultural values.

Cultural pressures to conform have affected learning style: filial duty, the actions one performs, are inextricably linked with filial loyalty or commitment. It is essential within Chinese society to know what to do in all circumstances. This is understood and accepted. There is a strong sense of duty and of obligation which has been ingrained since childhood. Doing one’s best is paramount. Perseverance, obedience, duty and loyalty are the essential qualities of a good son or daughter.

Confucian influence is also evident in the suppression of creativity. The age-old ‘golden mean’ doctrine, advises people to take a middle or neutral stance and this is still observable today:

The bird that stands out will be shot first.

The taller tree will catch the wind first.

Chinese children are warned not to take risks but to ‘play it safe’ while still ‘doing their best’. Traditional Chinese education was considered an essential method of moulding the character of its citizens as it complemented the family influence. Chinese teachers were listed among the five categories of being who should be most admired by society: the God of Heaven, the God of the Earth, the emperor, parents and teachers (Zhou, 1988). Education is absolutely important.

For many centuries the process of learning and education resulted in the mechanical memorisation of the ideals of antiquity, of which principally the Four Books and Five Great Classics constituted the major content to be mastered in schooling for civil service examinations. Classical instruction suppressed the spirit of free inquiry and any initiative on the part of the learner. Learners were to be submissive to the dominant teaching style which was the transmission of factual classical knowledge. In reality, education was primarily for a scholarly elite and not for the common citizen or worker (Zhou, 1988).

As education spread to the masses the educational values persisted, and schooling in Hong Kong, as experienced by the several of the researchers and many of those currently being researched, had changed little. One of the aims of this research was to explore the degree to which this traditional learning style, reinforced by the values of filial piety which parents from Hong Kong bring to Britain, causes problems of learning and adaptation for their children experiencing the life of British schools, and of British peer culture.

Note

1.  We prefer the term ‘British European’ rather than the crude term ‘white’, with its connotations of racial classification. ‘British Europeans’ are the long-settled group in the British Isles who are descended in the main from the ancient British settlers, who absorbed successive waves of immigrants, namely Celts, Romans, Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Normans and other Europeans. Rather than focusing on ‘race’ we focus on ‘ethnicity’, a compound of cultural characteristics which makes a group more or less unique. Cultural ethnicity is also a relatively fluid concept, open to many social influences.

2 The Chinese Community in Britain

Introduction

In this chapter we trace the growth and development of the Chinese community in Britain. The time-span and pattern of their settlement differs markedly from that of other substantial ethnic minority groups now living in Britain, notably those from the West Indies and the Indian subcontinent.

Although not all of the Chinese people now living in Britain can trace their descent from ancestors who lived in Hong Kong, it would be true to say that most of them could (Home Affai...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• The Authors
• 1 The Context and Background of the Study
• 2 The Chinese Community in Britain
• 3 Self Esteem and Cultural Identity
• 4 The Design of the Study and Sample Characteristics
• 5 Identity and Migration Experience in Chinese Adolescents
• 6 Language and Identity
• 7 Demographic Factors in Cultural Identity
• 8 Cultural Identity in Cross-Cultural Perspective
• 9 The Experience of School and Educational Aspirations
• 10 Qualitative Study of Chinese Families in Britain
• 11 Conclusions and Policy Recommendations
• References