Culturally Relevant Practices of Immigrant Teachers: Hybrid Global and Local Life Experiences in Teaching

• In Event: When the Global Becomes Local: Seeking Agency Through Educational Research With Diverse Communities

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: The purpose of this study was to explore the voices of immigrant teachers, in particular teachers of Japanese descent, within the complicated cultural, social, and political contexts of education and to consider how these teachers’ narratives shaped culturally relevant pedagogies. This study examined how immigrant teachers used their lived experiences as bilingual, bicultural, and transnational identities in their teaching of ELL/immigrant children, especially students of Asian descent.

Theoretical framework: A narrative epistemological stance was used as the research sought to understand and interpret the rich experiences of teachers of Asian descent. It was also chosen to situate the nature of knowledge and identity-making as stories in nature as well as relationship between narrative and culture(s) on the continuous process of identity construction (Bruner, 1985, 1996). Theories of culturally relevant pedagogies (e.g. Ladson-Billings, 1994; Gay, 2000; Howard, 2003) and transnational studies (e.g. Levitt, 2001; Potter, 2001), which intersected with the culturally relevant practices of these teachers, were also used to analyze and theorize these teachers’ stories to utilize culturally responsive approach in their teaching.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: This study used a qualitative, narrative research approach in order to explore the life narratives of three Japanese descent teachers and the ways in which these narratives informed their understanding of children’s needs and their teaching pedagogies.

Data sources: Participants of this study were three Japanese descent teachers, a mother, her daughter and the researcher. Given that narrative was both an epistemological position and a methodological tool, the primary method of collecting data and the form of data was in storied form. Individual and intergenerational interviews and participant journals were used to collect stories about the life experiences, learning experiences, and teaching experiences of each of the teachers.

Results: The findings indicated that the immigrant teachers’ lived experiences as bicultural, bilingual, and transnational beings were foundational to their understanding of their students and students’ families and woven throughout the decisions they made about working with their students and of facilitating these students’ success. In particular, the findings indicated that their work with children focused on supporting them at the interpersonal level within the context of multiple relationships and acting as cross-cultural mediators. These teachers created a third space to support children’s identity development within the context of multiple and often competing identity locations so that they were able to successfully negotiate multiple cultures.

Scholarly significance of the study: The number of immigrant families entering U.S. schools has been on a rapid rise and many teachers and schools are likely to have immigrant children in their classrooms at some point. This study revealed the voices, knowledge, culturally relevant pedagogical approaches and perspectives of Asian immigrant teachers which have been notably absent in past scholarship (e.g. Suzuki, 1998; Chew & Sheets, 2002). Their actions as agents in creating better educational spaces for ELL-immigrant children offer rich examples of the complex realities and educational needs of these children and culturally relevant pedagogy that works for the public good.

Author

• Gumiko Monobe, Kent State University - Kent