Skip to main content
Log in

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

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Frontiers of Education in China

Abstract

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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abdallah-Pretceille, M. (2006). Interculturalism as a paradigm for thinking about diversity. Intercultural Education, 17(5), 475–483. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675980601065764

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Abdallah-Pretceille, M. (2012). Towards a humanism of the diverse. International Journal of Education for Diversities, 1, 133–136.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baumeister, R., & Leary, M. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bense, K. (2016). International teacher mobility and migration: A review and synthesis of the current empirical research and literature. Educational Research Review, 17, 37–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2015.12.001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borg, M. (2001). Key concepts in ELT: Teachers’ beliefs. ELT Journal, 55(2), 186–188. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/55.2.186

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brandist, C. (2002). Two routes “to concreteness” in the work of the Bakhtin circle. Journal of the History of Ideas, 63(3), 521–537. doi: 10.1353/jhi.2002.0022

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Breidenbach, J., & Nyíri, P. (2009). Seeing culture everywhere: From genocide to consumer habits. Washington, DC, University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dervin, F. (2008). Métamorphoses identitaires en situation de mobilité [Identity metamorphoses in mobility contexts]. Turku, Finland: Turku University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dervin, F. (2011). A plea for change in research on intercultural discourses: A “liquid” approach to the study of the acculturation of Chinese students. Journal of multicultural discourses, 6(1), 37–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2010.532218

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dervin, F. (2015). Towards post-intercultural teacher education: Analyzing “extreme” intercultural dialogue to reconstruct interculturality. European Journal of Teacher Education, 38(1), 71–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2014.902441

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dervin, F. (2016). Interculturality in education: A theoretical and methodological toolbox. London, UK: Palgrave Pivot.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dervin, F., & Layne, H. (2013). A guide to interculturality for international and exchange students: An example of hostipitality? Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 8(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2012.753896

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dervin, F., & Machart, R. (Eds.). (2015). Cultural essentialism in intercultural relations. London, UK: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewilde, J., & Kulbrandstad, L. A. (2014). Recruitment and certification of migrant teachers: Roles and requirements. International Journal of Education for Diversities, 3, 37–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deters, P. (2006). Migrant teachers in Canada: learning the language and culture of a new professional community. In Proceedings of the European Association of Languages for Specific Purposes/Asociacion Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos (AELFE) (Saragosse, Espagne).

    Google Scholar 

  • van Dijk, T. (1995). Discourse analysis as ideology analysis. In C. Schäffner & A. Wenden (Eds.), Language and pace (pp. 17–33). Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elbaz-Luwisch, F. (2004). Migrant teachers: Stories of self and place. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 17(3), 387–414. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0951839042000204634

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ernest, P. (1989). The impact of beliefs on the teaching of mathematics. In P. Ernest (Ed.), Mathematics teaching: The state of the art (pp. 249-254). London, UK: Falmer Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gee, J. P. (1989). Literacy, discourse, and linguistics: Introduction. Journal of Education, 171(1), 5–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillespie, A., & Cornish, F. (2010). Intersubjectivity: Towards a dialogical analysis. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 40(1), 19–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.2009.00419.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grossen, M. (2010). Interaction analysis and psychology: A dialogical perspective. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 44(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-009-9108-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hahl, K., & Paavola, H. (2015). “To get a foot in the door”: New host country educated migrant teachers’ perceptions of their employability in Finland. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 40(3), 36–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2014v40n3.3

    Google Scholar 

  • Han, J. (2017). Post-lingual Chinese language learning: Hanzi pedagogy. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillian.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Holliday, A. (1999). Small cultures. Applied Linguistics, 20(2), 237–264. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/20.2.237

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holliday, A. (2010). Intercultural communication and ideology. London, UK: Sage

    Google Scholar 

  • Holliday, A. (2012). Culture, communication, context and power. In J. Jackson (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and intercultural communication (pp. 55–69). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hu, G. (2002). Potential cultural resistance to pedagogical imports: The case of communicative language teaching in China. Language Culture and Curriculum, 15(2), 93–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908310208666636

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Itkonen, T., Dervin, F., & Talib, M. T. (2017). Finnish education: An ambiguous utopia?. International Journal of Bias, Identity and Diversities in Education, 2(2), 13–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, J. (2011). Cultivating cosmopolitan, intercultural citizenship through critical reflection and international, experiential learning. Language and Intercultural Communication, 11(2), 80–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2011.556737

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jaques-Alain, M. (Ed.). (1977). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johansson, M. (2002). Sequential positioning of represented discourse: In A. Fetzer & C. Meierkord (Eds.), Rethinking sequentiality: Linguistics meets conversational interaction (pp. 249–271). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Johansson, M., & Suomela-Salmi, E. (2011). Enonciation: French pragmatic approach(es). In J. Zienkowski, J.-O. Östman, & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Discursive pragmatics (pp. 71–98). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Jokikokko, K. (2005). Interculturally trained Finnish teachers’ conceptions of diversity and intercultural competence. Intercultural Education, 16(1), 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636310500061898

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lefever, S., Paavola, H., Berman, R., Guðjónsdóttir, H., Talib, M. T., & Gísladóttir, K. R. (2014). Immigrant teachers in Iceland and Finland: Successes and contributions. International Journal of Education for Diversities, 3, 65–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, H., & Dervin, F. (2016). A transdisciplinary approach to examining and confidence-boosting the experiences of Chinese teachers of Chinese in Finland. L2 Journal, 8(4), 36–54. https://doi.org/10.5070/L28430211

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, H., & Holmes, P. (2018). Ideologies of Chinese language in Finland: A critical analysis of political and media discourses. Global Chinese, 4(2), 247–270. https://doi.org/10.1515/glochi-2018-0012

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moloney, R. A. (2013). Providing a bridge to intercultural pedagogy for native speaker teachers of Chinese in Australia. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 26(3), 213–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2013.829081

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moloney, R., & Xu, H. L. (2015). Transitioning beliefs in teachers of Chinese as a foreign language: An Australian case study. Cogent Education, 2(1), 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2015.1024960

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Myles, J., Cheng, L., & Wang, H. (2006). Teaching in elementary school: Perception of foreign-trained teacher candidates of their teaching practicum. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(2), 233–245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2005.09.001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ni, J. B. (2013). Medical ethics in China: A transcultural interpretation. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Niemi, H., Lavonen, J., Kallioniemi, A., & Toom, A. (2018). The role of teachers in the Finnish educational system: High professional autonomy and responsibility. In H. Niemi, A. Toom, A. Kallioniemi, & J. Lavonen (Eds.), The teacher’s role in the changing globalizing world (pp. 47–61). Boston, MA: Brill Sense.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Niyubahwe, A., Mukamurera, J., & Jutras, F. (2013). Professional integration of immigrant teachers in the school system: A literature review. McGill Journal of Educationl, 48(2), 279–296.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peeler, E., & Jane, B. (2005). Mentoring: Migrant teachers bridging professional practices. Teaching Education, 16(4), 325–336. https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210500345623

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piller, I. (2010). Intercultural communication: A critical introduction. Edinburgh, UK: EUP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pomerantz, A. (1986). Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies, 9(2-3), 219–229. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00148128

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poulson, L., Avramidis, E., Fox, R., Medwell, J., & Wary, D. (2001). The theoretical orientation of primary school literacy teachers: An exploratory study. Research Papers in Education, 16(3), 271–292.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pratt, D. D., Kelly, M., & Wong, W. S. S. (1999). Chinese conceptions of “effective teaching” in Hong Kong: Towards culturally sensitive evaluation of teaching. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 18(4), 241–258. https://doi.org/10.1080/026013799293739a

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Radhakrishnan, R. (2013). Why compare? In R. Felski & S. S. Friedman (Eds.), Comparison: Theories, approaches, uses (pp. 15–33). Baltimore, ME: The John Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ragnarsdóttir, H. (2010). Internationally educated teachers and student teachers in Iceland: Two qualitative studies. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, (100).

    Google Scholar 

  • Remennick, L. (2002). Survival of the fittest: Russian migrant teachers speak about their professional adjustment in Israel. International Migration, 40(1), 99–121. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2435.00187

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sahlberg, P. (2011). Finnish lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland? New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salazar, N. B. (2011). The power of imagination in transnational mobilities. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 18(6), 576–598. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2011.672859

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schinkel, W. (2018). Against “migrant integration”: For an end to neocolonial knowledge production. Comparative migration studies, 6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-018-0095-1

  • Shi, X. (2001). Critical pedagogy and intercultural communication: Creating discourses of diversity, equality, common goals and rational-moral motivation. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 22(3), 279–293. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256860120094000

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skhiri, R. (2016). Contribution of migrant teachers to the promotion of multicultural education in Finnish schools (Unpulished Master’s thesis). University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. Retrieved from https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/99182

    Google Scholar 

  • Stikhin, A., & Rynkänen, T. (2017). Russian-speaking migrant teachers in Finnish classrooms. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 7(4), 233–242. https://doi.org/10.1515/njmr-2017-0019

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tamimy, M. (2015). Consistencies and inconsistencies between teachers’ beliefs and practices. The Qualitative Report, 20(8), 1234–1259. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol20/iss8/7

    Google Scholar 

  • Virta, A. (2015). “In the middle of a pedagogical triangle”—Native-language support teachers constructing their identity in a new context. Teaching and Teacher Education, 46, 84–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.11.003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walsh, S. C., Brigham, S. M., & Wang, Y. (2011). Internationally educated female teachers in the neoliberal context: Their labor market and teacher certification experiences in Canada. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(3), 657–665. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2010.11.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang, L. (2015). Change in teaching beliefs when teaching abroad? A case study on Confucius Institute Chinese teachers’ teaching experiences in the US. In F. Dervin (Ed.), Chinese educational migration and student-teacher mobilities: Experiencing otherness (pp. 164-175). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, L., & Du, X. (2014). Chinese teachers’ professional identity and beliefs about the teacher-student relationships in an intercultural context. Frontiers of Education in China, 9(3), 429–455. doi: https://doi.org/10.3868/s110-003-014-0033-x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang, L., & Du, X. (2016). Chinese language teachers’ beliefs about their roles in the Danish context. System, 61, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2016.06.009

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watkins, D. A., & Biggs, J. B. (2001). The paradox of the Chinese learner and beyond. Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives, 3–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu, H. L., & Moloney, R. (2016). Teacher personal practical knowledge as a foundation for innovative practice: Narratives of returnee teachers of CFL in overseas contexts. In R. Moloney & H. L. Xu (Eds.), Exploring innovative pedagogy in the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language (pp. 157–176). Singapore, Singapore: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, G. X., & Li, L. M. (2010). Chinese language teaching in the UK: Present and future. Language Learning Journal, 38(1), 87–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09571731003620689

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zienkowski, J. (2011). Discursive pragmatics: A platform for the pragmatic study of discourse. In J. Zienkowski, J.-O. Östman, & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Discursive pragmatics (pp. 1–13). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Haiqin Liu.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Liu, H., Dervin, F., Xu, H. et al. “They Have It Better There”: Chinese Immigrant Teachers’ Beliefs, Ideologies and Imaginaries in Cross-National Comparisons. Front Educ China 14, 453–479 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-019-0022-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-019-0022-8

Keywords

Navigation