Speaker: Dr Xiaorong Gu (Lecturer in Childhood Studies, University of Suffolk, United Kingdom)
Time: 3:00pm–4:30pm, 25 Sep 2025 (Thursday, HK Time)
Venue: Zoom (ZOOM Link will be sent to registered audience after finished the e-registration.)
Registration: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/mycuform/view.php?id=3713238
About the Webinar:
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are under-diagnosed, underprivileged, and under-supported within China’s child population of 298 million. They live in a context where a comprehensive national policy tailored to their needs is yet to materialize, access to specialized services is limited, and social stigma is entrenched. As such, families become front-line support and the de facto safety net for these vulnerable children. In this study, leveraging publicly available we-media data of family stories by 88 mothers of autistic children, I conduct a two-layered narrative analysis towards understanding their experiences of raising autistic children and their narrative strategies to construct self- and children’s identities in society. The thematic analysis of mothers’ experiences reveals a pattern of “expansive mothering” among mothers of children with ASD. This form of mothering encompasses multiple, overlapping roles: primary caregiver, (semi)professional ASD therapist, education agent or facilitator, and social justice advocate for their children. Also emerging from the data is a narrative of ‘strong motherhood’, which draws from the cultural script of “good mothers” (liangmu) in Confucian ideals and the class discourse of “eating bitterness” that valorise mothers’ moral strength, child-centric care practices and educational labour, and maternal sacrifices. This study documents the coexisting resilience and vulnerabilities of Chinese families in caring for special needs children, especially the gendered parental care and labour by “strong mothers” and opens theoretical spaces to address the linkages between gender, care and social justice in special needs settings.
About the Speaker: Xiaorong Gu, PhD., is Lecturer in Childhood and Education Studies at University of Suffolk. Featured as Sociologist of the Month in April, 2023 by Current Sociology, she researches children’s and youth’s education and care, migration and mobilities, intergenerational relationships, transitioning to adulthood and their positioning vis-à-vis family, school and the nation-state, with a focus on China and Asian societies at large. She guest-edited two special issues, with Child Indicators Research (2021) and Current Sociology (2022) each, on the shifting valuation of children in contemporary Asian societies. She also co-edited The Emerald Handbook of Childhood and Youth in Asian Societies (2023, with Doris Bühler-Niederberger, Jessica Schwittek, Elena Kim). She is currently developing new collaborative projects focused on childhood and disability in China, as well as on children of East Asian ethnic backgrounds in Europe.
