My research interests center around the family and its changing functions in modern capitalist societies. My MPhil project focused on care work for elderly that is no longer taken up by the family but sustained by the market. As I carried out fieldwork at an elderly care co-op in Hong Kong, I delved into the everyday experiences of middle-aged women workers and observed the skills involved in their care labor. My thesis illustrated how they knitted together a highly fragmented healthcare system and explored the possibility for them to achieve autonomy as workers in the process.

For the past couple of years, I have worked as a private tutor for primary and secondary students. I taught them English, helped them with their homework, explained to them what the examiners were really looking for, and last but not least, listened to their – and their parents’ – grumbles and worries. Over time, I witnessed numerous instances of students being alienated (or alienating themselves) from the knowledge they learned as well as a disconnection between the goals of school instruction and actual educational outcomes. My current research aims to shed light on the impact of compulsory education, including but not limited to how students are trained to memorize the knowledge and embody the skills and attitudes required by the curriculum and how they (and their families) adapt or resist in the process. The diminishing role of the family as the main unit of production and primary socializer of children in the past centuries would be one of the keys to my analysis.