Between recognition and instrumentalization
Heritage language education for Southeast Asian marriage migrant women in Taiwan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24213684 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chun-Ping Wang (National Taipei University of Education) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-15 |
| Publication date | 2026-10-04 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0143-4632 • E-ISSN: 1747-7557 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/01434632.2026.2741239 |
| OpenAlex | W7220416629 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 15 |
Since 2019, Taiwan has incorporated seven Southeast Asian heritage languages into its national curriculum, marking a shift from the stigmatising category of ‘foreign brides’ toward recognising Southeast Asian marriage migrant women as ‘new residents’ and cultural citizens. Yet whether this recognition expands women's substantive opportunities or primarily serves economic and diplomatic agendas remains unclear. Drawing on 22 semi-structured interviews with scholars, advisory-team convenors, education administrators, and teaching assistants, this study examines how new resident language education has reshaped women's cultural recognition, professional roles, and agency. Using the capability approach, the findings show that the shift to ‘new residents’ broadens recognition while preserving a ‘perpetual outsider’ classification; curricular institutionalisation expands opportunities but remains constrained by regulatory ambiguity and unstable provision; professional recognition strengthens teaching assistants’ self-respect without securing sustainable conditions for agency; and the ‘bicultural talent’ narrative risks instrumentalizing immigrant languages at the expense of cultural rights. Recognition and instrumentalization, this study argues, can therefore coexist within the same policy arrangement.
Capability approach · cultural citizenship · Cultural rights · foreign brides · heritage language education · National curriculum · new residents · Taiwan · teaching assistants · women's agency · Education and experiences of immigrants and refugees · Immigration and Intercultural Education · Multilingual Education and Policy
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A Relational Account of Nussbaum's List of Capabilities
Creating pathways for internationally educated teachers into the teaching profession
Diverse Social Mobility Trajectories
Mother tongue education in Singapore
Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements
Critical transnational curriculum for immigrant and refugee students
Taiwanese multiculturalism and the political appropriation of new immigrants’ languages
The politics of ‘multiculturalism’ in language education
Learning Vietnamese as a heritage language in Taiwan
African Mother-tongue Programmes and the Politics of Language
Using thematic analysis in psychology
Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice
Women and Human Development
From Reproductive Assimilation to Neoliberal Multiculturalism
| Highly cited | No |
|---|