Confronting Difference: Learning to Teach in a Borderland School

• In Event: 67.050 - Professional Identity: Becoming Globally Competent

Abstract

The phenomenon of cross-border schooling has created new challenges for teachers in terms of addressing diversity and enacting inclusion in classrooms. In this study, I examined one Hong Kong student-teacher’s practicum experiences through the lens of narrative inquiry to understand how she grappled with tensions of learning to teach students who were “different”, in a “borderland” school between Hong Kong and Mainland China. This study offers a new perspective by examining the challenges of cross-cultural teaching in a context where “difference” is sociocultural rather than racial. Data were drawn from online mentoring conversations and interviews with the student-teacher during the practicum, which showed how she confronted dominant educational discourses and practices that she felt were marginalising learners in her school.

Author

• Cheri Chan, University of Hong Kong