Preliminary Research on Vienna’s Chinese Youth Community and Its Absence in Services of Open Youth Work

• Authors: WALLENBÖCK Ute
• Year of publication: 2020
• Type: Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
• Description: It is striking how little the presence of young people with Chinese migration background is discussed in academia within migration studies as well as social work; This community seems to be well integrated into the host societies of the receiving countries despite differences of their ‘culture and mentality’. In accordance with China’s ‘tradition’, even the Chinese youth in the host society is under pressure to acquire a good education in order to get a good job, consequently, they have limited free time to spend on social activities. Hence, the question arises about the Chinese adolescent immigrants’ activities during leisure time in welfare states. In general, young immigrants often make use of the Western host country’s services of Open Youth Work, which gives young people the opportunity to have voice or to have an impact on decisions that influence their lives. But much to my surprise, social workers in Vienna hardly have ever faced East Asian teenagers as their clients. Therefore, in my current research, a cross-disciplined case-study, which applies multidisciplinary research methods, I investigate the young Chinese immigrants in Vienna. My paper deals with the question why adolescents with Han-Chinese migration background do not take use of the services of Open Youth Work in Vienna. I assume that Open Youth Work is in contradiction with China’s Confucian hierarchical and power relationship between parents and children as well as with the strength of traditional family network. By applying Alfred Schütz’s theoretical framework of the life-world (“Lebenswelt”), I want to investigate the social reality of these adolescent with Chinese migration background in terms of culture, identity and society.