This article reports the results of a qualitative study whose purpose was to explore the teacher identity construction experiences of one group of vocational education English language teachers in China. The study uses narrative methods of inquiry to examine how English language teachers construct their professional identities within a…

From the foundation of the People's Republic of China (in 1949) until now, Chinese women's social status has been improved and their identities have been shifted with the changes in the social system. However, in the new century, they are experiencing a hard time in balancing careers and domestic work. Although Chinese women proactively…

Interpretive frameworks may be helpful to understand narratives, yet they also risk displacing unique information of the research context. In this paper, we argue that such is the case in narrative inquiry studies of English language teaching set in the Asian context, perhaps due to the pressure to use familiar interpretive frameworks that are…

In the global competition of higher education, an increasing emphasis has been placed on university research excellence. Accordingly, academics have to engage in both research and teaching activities. The multiple and fragmented identities of academics can sometimes be contested, leading to identity tensions, and impeding their professional…

Situated in China and under the context of curriculum reform, this project is an effort to combine long-time separate research streams in language teaching and learning studies: the history-in-person perspective (Holland & Lave, 2001) and the discourse analysis perspective (Cazden, 1988). Informed by the concepts of…

This study conceptualises teacher attrition as a dynamic process of identity construction and interpretation in shifting professional knowledge landscapes, which attunes to both individual and contextual milieus. From this perspective, this narrative inquiry describes the attrition experiences of two Chinese beginning teachers after two years of…

Since 2015, China has established a 'Group Form of Educational Aid for Tibet' programme to dispatch ethnic Han majority teachers from inland cities to teach in Tibetan schools for a short period of time. Through the programme, the state aims to offer the gift of educational development to this highland area with a concentrated Tibetan minority…

Considering the broad context that there is a growing number of international students seeking English teacher education in the Western TEOSL programs and the majority of them will eventually go back to their own countries to teach, these international TESOL trainees face the challenge of integrating two different language education systems.…

This research combines Lugones' notions of arrogant perception and loving acceptance with Buber's concepts of I-It (treating people like objects) and I-Thou (treating people as valued human beings) to examine what 43 doctoral students reciprocally learned when they embarked on a travel study abroad program to China. The work, which draws on…

As the education for sustainable development (ESD) has been advocated in diverse educational contexts, increasingly more attention has been paid to facilitate teachers as the promoters of such educational practice in higher education. Yet, less sufficient research has focused on the ESP (English for Specific Purposes) teachers, who are regarded as…

This paper presents the reflections of one of the authors, a junior faculty member, on teaching a master's level, English-medium instruction (EMI) course. The course was titled, "International Research on Teacher Education," and it took place in a Chinese research-intensive university. It was, in part, a response to the need for…

This research narratively explores a veteran teacher's emotions and identities in varied teacher communities within and outside a rural school in China. Based on interviews, the teacher's one-year reflective narratives and conversational records with members of an online teacher community, this research constructs and reconstructs how varied…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how three Chinese teachers developed their teacher identities in a reform context. Drawing upon data from a larger social historical study, the work-life narratives of the three teachers at different stages of their careers were used as case studies to showcase three types of teacher identity…

This chapter examines the life, learning, and research experiences of an American scholar who immigrated to the United States from China where she received her primary and secondary school education, and taught ESL at the prestigious Chinese university from which she graduated. The scholar reflects on her stories in China and in the United States…

Confucianism has had a profound influence on Chinese learners' academic achievements, moral education and education for citizenship. It is often suggested that the influence of Confucianism leads to educational success. Situating the Confucian ideology in a Western educational setting in so far as how those involved in teaching and learning…