Asserting agency: Taiwanese children confront Confucian values in kindergarten and first-grade peer cultures (China)

Most current depictions of the Chinese childhood socialization process portray these children as passive recipients of cultural knowledge. In contrast, most Western theories of childhood socialization contend that children actively use cultural information for their own purposes. I examined this disparity by conducting an ethnographic study of Taiwanese children's peer cultures in kindergarten and first grade. In 2001 I conducted over 665 hours of participant observation in one public kindergarten class and in one first grade class in Taipei City, Taiwan. During my field research, I became a special member of each class and observed both teacher/student interactions and students' interactions with one another. Consistent with previous research, I found that teachers drew on traditional Chinese Confucian values when teaching children to be good students, good family members, and good peers. In contrast to previous depictions of passive Chinese students, I found that the children in my study actively confronted these Confucian values within their own peer cultures. Specifically, students used a particular language practice called word play both to accommodate and to resist their teachers' socialization efforts. In addition, students also used creative school and family role play to address the values taught to them by their teachers. Both kindergarteners and first graders asserted their agency through word play and role play, and each group used a range of strategies to address these values. In sum, Taiwanese kindergarten and first grade students in this study actively incorporated their teachers' socialization messages into their interactions with one another and demonstrated that future research aimed at Chinese children must adopt a more active view of their roles in the socialization process.