6–10 Jun 2022
Tübingen
Europe/Berlin timezone

Globalization and the reproduction of class: parenting and the leisure football in Taiwanese families

Speaker

Ying Chiang

Description

The aim of this essay is to examine the discourses of leisure football and parenting and discover the ideal parenting and its implications in class through the practice and consumption of children’s leisure football in the age of globalization in Taiwan.
By adopting textual analysis as a method, it is found that children’s leisure football in Taiwan has been through a “leisurizing” process starting from the 1990s to the 2020s. Although football is still marginal as a spectator sport, except for the quadrennial FIFA World Cup, playing football has gained its popularity during the period. During the time, the field of practice of the game has moved from nursery schools to football clubs. The narratives of children’s leisure football have been getting more diversified and science oriented. Since the 2000s, along with the national policy and the growth of consumerism, physical fitness of children has become an important part of Taiwan’s child rearing practice. Expert knowledge, sport science and medical discourses are integrated into a scientific and progressive way of parenting via football in Taiwan. Playing football in clubs, wearing replica kits of internationally renowned clubs, coached by English-speaking coaches are taken as parenting with global visions. Furthermore, playing football is believed a good way to learn teamwork and help parents managing the problems derived from the excessive use of 3C products of their children. To conclude, without deep-rooted tradition and history, football is adopted for a more instrumental purpose. It has become a leisure activity and educational tool for the urban, middle-class Taiwanese parents.

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