Capitalizing Interculturality: A Self-Study of Life as a Relocated Chinese Bilingual Teacher

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Bilingual and Bicultural Teaching and Learning Around the World

Abstract

This research aims at identifying interculturality as a form of capital that is constructively accumulated along with the life experience of cross-cultural individuals. Specifically, the intercultural capital of immigrant bilingual teachers helps them to successfully position themselves in the multicultural social context, thus justifies and consolidate their teacher identities. As a member of the group of Relocated Chinese Bilingual Teachers (RCBTs), the researcher starts from the extraction of self-reflection about the experience as a teaching professional of a bilingual program. The self-study is launched both as an approach for RCBTs’ self-discovery, and as a chance to give voice to teachers of color as equally important professional groups with their own strength and weakness in the western context.

Author

• Jingyi Zhou, University of Wisconsin - Madison