Events

Generational Cohort and Value Orientations: The Case of Chinese Childrearing Expectations by Assoc Prof Xiao Hong

Date: 16 Apr 2013
Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Venue:

ARI Seminar Room
Tower Block Level 10, 469A Bukit Timah Road
National University of Singapore @ BTC

Organisers:

CHAIRPERSON

Prof Jean Yeung, Asia Research Institute, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore.

ABSTRACT

The concept of generational cohort has been used to explain variations in value orientations. Significant historical events and social movements, due to their weight and influence on ideology and social conditions in a particular time period, mark the boundaries between generations. Using data from the China panels in the World Values Survey 1990-2007, this paper examines if generational cohorts differ in their aspirations for children. Results suggest that political campaigns and shifting state policies in China indeed define generational boundaries and there are clear and significant generational cohort differences in the type of values that people cherish most in children. I discuss the implications of the results for the understanding of the effects of generational location on childrearing aspirations in China.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Xiao Hong, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Master of Arts in Contemporary China, School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University. Her teaching and research interests are social stratification, gender, cultural values, aging and health, marriage and the family, and social ecology. She is the author of Childrearing Values in the United States and China: A Comparison of Belief Systems and Social Structure (Praeger Publishers, 2001) and also published on topics such as social class and values, child socialization, culture and values, gender, domestic violence, and human rights. Her current research concerns changing roles of and aspirations for children, educational inequality, generational cohorts, and environmental awareness in China. Prior to her appointment at Nanyang Technological University in 2010, Hong Xiao was a Professor of Sociology and Chair of Department of Sociology at Central Washington University.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Mr Jonathan Lee at Email: jonathan.lee@nus.edu.sg