Melbourne July 2010 1 Negotiation of identity

Melbourne July 2010 1

Negotiation of identity in a multicultural setting • An exploration of the forming of identities for students at an international school in China • Features a highly transient expatriate population 2

Methodology • The ethnographic interview (Spradley 1979) • Locate researcher in participants’ world • Repeated interviews • 4 rounds • Participants as researchers 3

Four rounds • Round 1: open topics • Round 2: participants asked to respond to the analysis of their first interview • Round 3: participants asked to respond to general findings from all participants • Round 4: participants asked to respond to emerging hypotheses 4

Issues raised by participants • • • Cultural clashes Friendship IBO Identity International Life International school Internationalism or Globalisation Language Third culture kids Transient life 5

The setting • International School in China • Student data: nationalities and ages • Teachers’ nationalities and length of service • Turn over rates 6

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Average time at the school • Teachers (overseas hire) - 2. 58 years • Students - 2. 1 years 9

Negotiation of identity in a multicultural setting • What are the different factors and influences as identified by the participants? 10

• “where are you from? ” • “I feel more German here” • “A changing beast” and a “mishmash” • “people are constantly coming and going” • “lots of my friends just leave” • “keeping people at arm’s length” • Negotiated friendship by time 11

• ‘I think China is home now, because in Italy I don’t have any friends my age. Now I feel that China is my home. I have all my affections here, I have all my family here except [brother], I have all my best friends are here, all my interests are in China, so when I say I want to go home, I refer to China and not Italy, when I go to Italy it’s more like a vacation to me because we always go there for Christmas and summer vacation’ 12

Returning home Italy • ‘…and they also admire me because I speak another language -and my vision about the cultures and about the word in general is probably wider than they have, so – I think when they look at me they ask me a lot about China because I think they are really interested about the culture, they ask me to do their English homework and all that, so I think they kind of see me with a different light’ 13

Returning home Korea • ‘It’s kind of embarrassing to say I am living in China because – like Korea they ignore Chinese because - I don’t know the reason but they ignore Chinese –so when you say I’m living in China it will be a disadvantage to live in Korea, sometimes they ignore us or bully us, yeah it’s kind of embarrassing’ 14

Transient lifestyle • ‘…not wanting too deep friendships when you know that someone is going to leave in two years and even if you tell yourself you are not doing that, probably subconsciously we are doing that, you are keeping people at arm’s length’ - 15

• you realise that nothing is lasting here, friendships and housing and schooling, it’s all a little bit insecure, next year it could be different or gone, I don’t know, we have moved house I think six or seven times - it’s not scary as such, it’s just a little bit - it’s always something that is unknown, it is always changing constantly 16

The Bubble • Reports of expatriate children with no previous experience of the host country developing negative attitudes 17

• I think if you bring up children in the bubble they will have - feel less need to adapt to Chinese culture, they will feel more to - preserve or show European or other country identity rather than showing they actually came from China - and I also, I think it gives then a bad view of China because it separates them from China so they probably have, when they come back to their home country and people ask them ‘how is China? ’ and they say ‘fine’ but then they can’t say anything else because they have never actually been to real China so they never know, so probably Discovery Channel can tell them more about China than if they go outside and look 19

• I actually agree with your idea of bubble I think this is a good opportunity to experience China or the other Western style of life but most Korean students do not want to involve in China culture and China people altogether 20

Students negotiate identity • I feel like I have to show I am Korean so you feel more pressure, you think you have to show it more clearly 21

• I am more Korean when I am in a foreign country because if I was in Korea I wouldn’t wear those formal Korean traditional clothes at all but because I am in international school I go there and I am in a foreign country and I do that. 22

• I’d say I feel more German here because - erm - because you don’t realise the German aspect of your own personal culture if you, when you are in Germany because everybody there is German and they all do the German things and when you are here - it’s - I don’t know, here you can explain to people if you are talking to people about your home country’s cultural aspects 23

• you begin to see your own country differently, see yourself differently 24

• it is sort of like a sub-culture I am used to which is just like a small group of international expats I guess, who are really part of this culture inside another culture - it’s a little bit hard to describe we are sort of creating - it’s like we are bringing our culture over here, it changes a lot and brings other elements into it 25

• you know Germans are very direct speaking and you can lay something on the line to them and they are absolutely not insulted, but not fellow Brits I often notice, and I’ve become very direct after so many years and when I go back to Scotland I know I have to tone it down quite a bit 26

• these people are afraid because the country is so different, so alien 27

Conflict • you don’t get to understand what the others are talking about and it forms a different culture in the whole school, it just a different part of a group of people who are Koreans, and the other are just ‘oh they are Koreans and they are talking Korean all the time’ I hate that 28

• they have left their home for the first time and feel more at home with people from their country, they find it simply easier to talk to people who have had the same experience and find it easier to have a conversation with people who can relate back to the same things in their childhood 29

• H -some kids just hate foreigners and some foreigner just hate Koreans and this relationship doesn’t get better • PH -when you say ‘foreigners’, who are the foreigners? • H - people who are not – erm -people who are not, if you are Korean, if that is your nationality then it is everybody else [laughs] • PH -so people who are not Korean are the foreigners? • H [laughs] they are all foreigners 30

• the Korean’s problem is the students, they just want to play with Koreans, if [daughter] want to include in Korean group, club, she can’t play with the Westerner, that’s the problem and that is very strong and really difficult, with Korean group, and they say ‘you need to choose, Korean or other group’ 31

• Various forms of cultural dissonance (Allan 2002, 2003, Drake 2004, Poore 2005) were evident; between parents’ expectations of a school and the IBO curriculum, between the Korean community and the Anglo-American dominated school culture, between Koreans and non-Koreans and finally within the Korean community, where peer pressure is on Korean students to stay in home-country groups only. 32

• New arrivals are effectively separated into one of two camps due to language and social barriers and by ‘self’ and ‘other’ ascription (Byram 2003). 33

Findings • Participants reported they created new identities • Participants reported developing dual identities • They developed ‘international’ identities but and at the same time experienced a reinforcement of their national identities 34

Findings • The results indicate that in TIS, dissonance is intense and counterproductive to the school’s aim “to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect” (IBO Mission Statement). 35

Literature Ethnography • Spradley, J. (1979) The Ethnographic Interview. • • Wadsworth Thomson Learning Hammersley, M. (1992) What’s Wrong with Ethnography? Routledge. Hammersley, M. (1998) Reading Ethnographic Research: A Critical Guide. Harlow: Longman Pole, C. , and Morrison, M. (2003) Ethnography for Education. Open University Press Coffey, A. , and Atkinson, P. (1996) Making Sense of Qualitative Data. SAGE publications 36

Literature(2002 b) Identifying the Globalist and International Schools • Cambridge, J. Internationalist Missions of International Schools. • International Schools Journal (December 2002) Cambridge, J. and Thompson, J. (2004) Internationalism • Compare, Vol. 34, No. 2. Hayden M. , Rancic B. and Thompson J. (2000) Being • • and globalization as contexts for international education, International: student and teacher perceptions from international schools. Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 26, No. 1. Hayden, M. , Thompson, J. and Williams, G. (2003) Students perceptions of international education. Journal of Research in International Education. Vol. 2, No 2. Hinrichs, J. (2003) A comparison of levels of international understanding among students of the International Baccalaureate diploma and the Advance Placement programs in the USA. Journal of Research in International Education. Vol. 2, No 3. 37

Literature TCK • Bell, L. (1997) Hidden Immigrants, Legacies of Growing Up Abroad, • • Cross Cultural Publications, Inc. Fail, H. , Thompson, J. and Walker, G. (2004) Belonging, identity and Third Culture Kids Life histories of former international school students. Journal of Research in International Education. Vol. 3, No 3. Mills, J. (2001) Being Bilingual: Perspectives of Third Generation Asian Children on Language, Culture and Identity. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism Vol. 4, No. 6. Pavlenko, A. and Blackledge, A. , (editors) (2004) Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts. Clevedon, Multilingual Matters. Pollock, D. and Van Reken, R. (1999) Third Culture Kids. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. 38

Literature Cultural Dissonance • Allan, M. (2002) Cultural Borderlands: A case study of cultural dissonance in an international school. Journal of Research in International • • Education. Vol. 1, No. 1. Drake, B. (2004) International education and IB programmes: Worldwide expansion and potential cultural dissonance. Journal of Research in International Education. Vol. 3, No. 2. Byram, M. (2003). On Being ‘Bicultural’ and ‘Intercultural’. In G. Alfred, M. Byram and M. Fleming (eds) Intercultural Experience and Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 39