Navigating Marginalization: Toward Justice-Oriented Socio-Technical Design for Parent-Child Learning among Southeast Asian Immigrant Mothers in Taiwan

TL;DR

This paper explores how Southeast Asian immigrant mothers in Taiwan navigate sociocultural challenges to support their children's learning, proposing justice-oriented socio-technical design solutions that recognize their intersectional identities.

Contribution

It foregrounds intersectional identity in parent-child learning and offers novel justice-oriented design directions for socio-technical systems supporting immigrant mothers.

Findings

Mothers creatively engage in children's learning despite marginalization

Design implications emphasize recognition, reciprocity, and accountability

Intersectional identity influences learning participation and needs

Abstract

This study investigates how Southeast Asian (SEA) immigrant mothers in Taiwan participate in their children's home-based learning. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and diary studies, we explore how these mothers navigate sociocultural constraints while fostering engagement and transmitting cultural values. Despite facing diminished agency and structural marginalization, mothers engage creatively in their children's everyday learning interactions. Guided by a justice-oriented lens, we identify various harms and propose design implications for socio-technical systems that center recognition, reciprocity, and accountability in parent-child learning at the individual, familial, and societal levels. Our contribution lies in foregrounding the role of intersectional identity in parent-child learning and proposing justice-oriented design directions that support the flourishing of immigrant mothers within socio-technical systems.