Intercultural Differences as Assets: Transnational Pedagogical Knowledge Transfer among Chinese Bilingual Teachers

• In Event: Transnational Perspectives in Bilingual Education: Honoring Community Knowledge and Fostering Equity

Abstract

Studies on transnational teachers’ identity, professionalism, and pedagogical practices have mainly focused on their challenges and struggles in overcoming intercultural differences in their cross-cultural teaching. Framed as challenges, intercultural differences are often seen as barriers to transnational teachers’ successful adaptation to the dominant Euro-centric ways of teaching, which transnational teachers are expected to emulate as it is seen as the norm and better form of teaching. Consequently, transnational bilingual teachers’ transnational personal and professional knowledge are often seen as deficits to their professional practices; their previous pedagogical knowledge from teaching experiences in their home country and/or teacher professional development are devalued; and their unique border-crossing literacies gained from living and teaching in multiple locales, cultures, and contexts were often neglected. These deficit views of their transnational funds of knowledge (Dabach & Fones, 2016) often stifle their ability to innovate, their agency to advocate for changes, and laden them with additional emotional labor (Zang et al., 2024). A small group of recent studies (e.g., Kim, 2022; Kong, 2015; Kwon & Kim, 2023) on transnational teachers, however, have shown that their in-depth knowledge embedded in their complex linguistic, cultural, and geographic experiences as well as their prior professional learning and teaching practices can be significant resources for creative and successful teaching and connecting with increasingly diverse students in their bilingual classrooms.
Framed within transnational social field (Levitt & Schriller, 2004) and teacher cognition frameworks (Borg, 2005), this case study focuses on 10 Chinese immersion/bilingual teachers’ perspectives and experiences in drawing on assets from their previous sociocultural and professional knowledge in designing and conducting their lessons in a dual language immersion school in the U.S. Data for this analysis include their online post-discussions on their personal and professional identities as transnational educators and their reflections on how they bring in their transnational funds of knowledge in their current teaching practices, as well as reflections on their video-recorded lessons. These reflections cover their thoughts on their transnational adaptations in curriculum design, classroom management, teaching methods including assessments, and communicating with parents. Thematic data analyses suggest that the teachers are able to view their intercultural differences as assets and leverage different professional and personal connections as resources for adapting to new contexts of teaching. However, teachers’ agency and ability to transfer their prior pedagogical knowledge in their current teaching vary due to a variety of factors such as the school context, the prevalent western-centric ideology, and their unique teaching culture in their home country. The findings have important implications for moving towards more asset-based perspectives on transnational teachers’ practices, especially in understanding how they engage in transnational pedagogical knowledge transfer in instruction.

Authors

• Guofang Li, University of British Columbia

• Wenying Zhou, Michigan State University