Accumulating Mobility: Digital Parenting Practices of Chinese Rural Migrant Families

This thesis explores the intersections of media technologies, family communication, gender, and class culture in the digital parenting practices of Chinese rural-to-urban migrant families within broader socio-cultural contexts, including Confucian parenting styles, infrastructure developments, welfare policies, and class stratification. It examines the digital parenting patterns within family communication, the tactics used to negotiate familial conflicts, and the inequalities these families face in their daily parenting practices.

The research is based on multi-sited fieldwork conducted between November 2021 and December 2022 in three cities (Wuxi, Changzhou, and Shanghai) and a rural village in Sichuan. I conducted offline interviews, in-person observations, and online ethnographic interactions with Chinese rural migrant worker parents, left-behind children, their grandparents, school teachers, and social workers. The study contributes to migration, digital parenting, and social class scholarship, highlighting how underprivileged families combine digital resources with family support to navigate parenting challenges and pursue social mobility.

The research reveals that digital parenting in these families often combines compensatory care with digital surveillance. Parents use technology to maintain control and provide guidance from a distance, but this approach also introduces digital burdens, as the constant connectivity pressures both parents and children. Familial conflicts frequently arise around the delicate balance between care and control. Both gendered expectations and class constraints shape the inequalities in digital parenting practices.

Disparities are evident in access to and the effective use of digital and community resources and family collaboration. Families with more digital and spatial mobility are better positioned to support their children’s development, benefiting from enhanced mobility resources to coordinate childcare.