Kristy Shih

Kristy Shih, Ph.D.

• Professor of Human Development
• Email: Kristy.Shih@csulb.edu
• Phone: (562) 985-5581
• Office Location: LA3-105B
• Office hours for Spring 2024: Wednesdays 2:45-3:45pm (F2F and via Zoom) and by appointment. Please email Dr. Shih for an appointment.
• Website: https://kshih18.wordpress.com/about/

Education

• Ph.D. (2011), M.A. (2008) University of California – Riverside, Sociology
• M.S. (2004) University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign, Human Development and Family Studies
• B.A. (2002) University of Richmond, Psychology and Sociology

Research Interests

Dr. Kristy Shih is a critical race feminist sociologist specializing in adult development, Asian Americans, racial/ethnic minority families, immigrant and transnational families, family diversity, intersectionality, feminist theories and methods, qualitative interview methods, and anti-racist and social justice scholarship.

An expert on Asian American families, Dr. Shih’s scholarship has interrogated the negative impacts of the “model minority myth/stereotype” on Asian American youth, families, and communities. Her current multi-site interview project examines the transnational family experiences of adult former “parachute kids” from Taiwan who immigrated to the U.S./Canada alone for educational purposes during middle to high school years. As parents often stay in the home country to continue their employment or family obligations, minor-aged “parachute kids” are left on their own, with relatives, or in boarding houses with a stranger acting as their legal guardian. In conducting intensive interviews with former “parachute kids” who are now adults living in the U.S. or Taiwan, this study examines how they describe growing up in a foreign country without their parents, the ways in which they negotiate racial/ethnic and gender identities and inequities in a transnational context, and how transnational living arrangements affect their relationships with their aging parents and other family members. This study also explores the return migration experiences of adult former “parachute kids”: what prompted their return to their homeland, how they cope with the dramatic changes they face living and working in Taiwan, what impacts their U.S. education and experiences have on their relationship with their parents and their interaction with employers and coworkers in Taiwan, and how they maintain ties to their social networks in the U.S.

Using qualitative in-depth interviews with mother/son/daughter-in-law triads, Dr. Shih’s previous research engages a critical race feminist analysis of gender and power dynamics in Taiwanese, Taiwanese American, and Mexican American families.

Teaching

• HDEV 357: Approaches to Adulthood Through Aging 
• HDEV 360: Cultural Foundations for Human Development 
• HDEV 408: Impacts of Race & Racism on Human Development across the Lifespan 

Editorial Appointments

• Editor, Youth, Families, and the Life Course Section (formerly Youth and Family Section), Sociology Compass
• van Eeden-Moorefield, B.*, & Shih, K. Y.* (2022). Special Issues Co-Guest Editors, Transformative Family Scholarship: Theory, Practice, and Research at the Intersection of Families, Race, and Social Justice. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 14 (3). * equal editorship
  

Media Interviews

• Taiwanese, in transition: Return migration to Asia may be on the rise, but Taiwan’s transnational talent is experiencing a bumpy reentry. Taipei Times featured article (6/20/2019).

Selected Publications

• Chang, T. F., & Shih, K. Y. (2023). Chinese American parents’ expectations for and involvement in children’s literacy learning and achievement: Impacts of cultural values and acculturation. Invited chapter in Family Literacy Practices in Asian and Latinx Families: A Comparative Look. Palgrave Mcmillan Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood series.
• van Eeden-Moorefield, B.*, & Shih, K. Y.* (2022). Introduction to the special issue on theorizing families, anti-racism, and social justice. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 14 (3), 309-317. doi: 10.1111/jftr.12477. * equal authorship.
• van Eeden-Moorefield, B.*, & Shih, K. Y.* (Eds., 2022). Special Issues on Transformative Family Scholarship: Theory, Practice, and Research at the Intersection of Families, Race, and Social Justice. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 14 (3). * equal editorship.
• Chang, T. F, & Shih, K. Y. (2021). Are Asian American children and youth high achieving? Unpacking variations of educational achievement from an integrative ecological perspective. Asian American Journal of Psychology.
• Chen, S. Y., Chang, T. F.*, & Shih, K. Y.* (2021). Model minority stereotype: Addressing impacts of racism and inequities on Asian American adolescents’ development. Journal of Child and Adolescent Counseling, 7, 118-131. * equal authorship.
• Shih, K. Y. (2020). Invited review of the book, The making of a teenage service class: Poverty and mobility in an American city, by R. Ray. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 12, 87-93.
• Shih, K. Y., Chang, T. F., & Chen, S. Y. (2019). Impacts of the model minority myth on Asian American individuals and families: Social justice and critical race feminist perspectives. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 11, 412-428.
• Kang, H., & Shih, K. Y. (2018). “Actions speak louder than words”: Korean American emerging adults’ perceptions and meaning-making of their parents’ instrumental aspects of parenting. Journal of Family Issues, 39, 644-667.
• Shih, K. Y. (2017). Addressing power and resistance with Chinese American daughters-in-law and their immigrant mothers-in-law. In K. Quek & S. Fang (Eds.), Transition and Change in Collectivist Family Life, 11-20.
• Shih, K. Y. (2016). Transnational families. In Shehan, C. (Ed.), The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Family Studies. NJ: Wiley Blackwell.
• Shih, K. Y., & Kang, H. (2016). Asian American families. In Shehan, C. (Ed.), The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Family Studies. NJ: Wiley Blackwell.
• Shih, K. Y., & Pyke, K. (2016). Seeing mothers-in-law through the lens of the mothering ideology: An interview analysis of Taiwanese, Taiwanese American, and Mexican American daughters-in-law. Journal of Family Issues, 37, 1968-1993.
• van Eeden-Moorefield, B., & Shih, K. (2015). Family diversity. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2^nd Edition. NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Shih, K. Y., & Pyke, K. (2010). Power, resistance, and emotional economies in women’s relationships with mothers-in-law in Chinese immigrant families. Journal of Family Issues, 31(3), 333-357. **Reprinted in Shehan, C. (Ed.) (2016). The Family Issues Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
• Coltrane, S., & Shih, K. Y. (2010). Gender and the division of labor. In J. Chrisler & D. McCreary (Eds.), Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology (pp. 401-422). NY: Springer.