Educating Chinese-Heritage Students in the Global-Local Nexus ─ Identities, Challenges, and Opportunities

Weaving together a richly diverse range of student voices, perspectives and insights, this collection of studies from around the world offers the educational community a better understanding of K-12 and adult Chinese-heritage students’ languages, cultures, identities, motivations, achievements, and challenges in various international sociocultural settings outside North America. Specifically, it addresses these overarching questions:

• What are Chinese-heritage students’ experiences in language and education in and outside schools? How do they make sense of their multiple ethnic and sociocultural identities?
• What unique educational challenges and difficulties do they encounter as they acculturate, socialize, and integrate in their host country? What are the common struggles and coping strategies?
• What are the instructional practices that work for these learners in their specific contexts? What educational implications can be drawn to inform their teachers, fellow students, parents, and the educational communities in a global context?

Focusing on these central questions, individual chapters employ different theoretical frameworks and methodological instruments to wrestle with language and literacy challenges, learning across the curriculum, social, cultural and personal identities, the costs of academic pursuits, acculturation and socialization, emotional-psychological development, effective instructional practices, and other critical issues faced by Chinese-heritage learners.

Guofang Li is a Professor and Canada Research Chair, Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Canada.

Wen Ma is an Associate Professor of Education at Le Moyne College, USA.