“They Have It Better There”:Chinese Immigrant Teachers’Beliefs,Ideologies and Imaginaries in Cross-National Comparisons

This paper was written in response to a growing need to address the perceptions and experiences of immigrant teachers.Based on a critical intercultural theoretical perspective,which moves beyond typical“culture shock”and“adaptation”models of understanding and explaining immigrants’experiences,this paper makes use of the concepts of teacher beliefs,ideologies and imaginaries(Holliday,2010)in considering how Finland-based Chinese immigrant teachers perceive the position of being teachers of Chinese in Finland and Australia.An analysis of data from group discussions during a teacher training workshop indicates that these teachers constructed a“utopia”(Australia)and“dystopia”(Finland)of Chinese language teaching,and reveals that multiple factors have influenced these immigrant teachers’perceptions and experiences.Findings provide information for teacher educators and stakeholders to better understand and support immigrant teachers from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Parenting of Immigrant Chinese Families in Western Countries:A Systematic Review

Increasing numbers of studies have been done on parenting in Chinese immigrant families due to the growing population of Chinese immigrants in Western countries.This paper systematically reviews 35 peer-reviewed journal articles relevant to parenting in Chinese immigrant families,categorizing them into descriptive studies,simple explanatory studies,and dialectical and dynamic studies,and identifying their major findings and limitations.It finds that descriptive studies tend to describe parenting as a collection of static characteristics,and simple explanatory studies are likely to define parenting as an independent factor mechanically related to other factors.Thus these two types of studies are barely able to reveal the real essence of parenting in immigrant Chinese families.To solve the limitations of descriptive studies and simple explanatory studies,this paper argues for conducting dynamic and dialectical studies,which conceptualize parenting as a dynamic process dialectically related to cultural differences and other processes.

TCM in Canada:Health Care and the Importance of Alternative Medicines that Complement Medical Practice

This article explores the introduction and growth of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)through the lens of Chinese immigration to Canada.It further explores how it has spread to other cultural groups in Canada.Several theories are described to explain why it has attracted attention by non-Chinese ethnicities:the interest in organic and nature-based approaches,the underfunding health care,lack of family doctors,expensive drugs from big pharmaceutical companies,and respect for Chinese cultural practices.The regulatory practice of TCM is described along with the organization,types of educational program and certification as well as a patient’s perspective of TCM treatment.

Chinese Teachers’Professional Identity and Beliefs about the Teacher-Student Relationships in an Intercultural Context

This paper presents a qualitative study of immigrant Chinese teachers’professional identity and beliefs about the teacher-student relationship in an intercultural context.Theoretically,this study takes its departure from a sociocultural perspective on understanding professional identity.The empirical analysis in the study drew mainly upon ethnographic interviews with a group of Chinese language teachers in Denmark concerning their life experiences,perceptions,and beliefs.The results of this study suggest that teachers’beliefs about their roles as teachers and about student-teacher relationships are shaped by both their prior experiences and backgrounds and the current social and cultural contexts in which they are situated.Changes of context(e.g.,from China to Denmark)often lead to a transformation of their professional identity and beliefs.Being a teacher in an intercultural context often exposes them to the confrontation of diverse challenges and dilemmas.On one hand,teachers in this study generally experienced a transformation from being a moral role model,subject expert,authority and parental role to being a learning facilitator and culture worker.On the other hand,they developed diverse individualized coping strategies to handle student-teacher interactions and other aspects of teachers’professional identity.