Cultural Pedagogy in the Chinese Classroom: Theory, Research, and Practice
(Beijing: China Minzu University Press, 2016)
Grounded in empirical findings and framed by critical theories, this book puts forwards a new pedagogical paradigm for integrating culture into the Chinese classroom that breaks away from conventional disciplinary boundaries between language instruction and cultural studies. Utilizing the dialectical framework that combines empirical, interpretive, and critical approaches, this book bridges the gap between the two realms. A variety of research methods are employed, including the first nationwide online survey on the subject in the United States, in-depth interviews with both teachers and students, classroom observation, as well as critical analyses of curricula, classroom setting, textbooks, and teaching resources. Accordingly, this study proposes a new paradigm—“4P’s of cultural pedagogy”—as the guidelines for instructional strategies, curriculum designs, and intellectual debates. The four-dimensional model advocates that educators should pay as much attention to how cultures are presented and perceived in the classroom as what is taught and who teaches it. The “4P’s” are Cultural Plurality, Cultural Progressivity, Cultural Positionality, and Cultural Performativity, which explore the material, temporal, spatial, and communicative factors, respectively. It is the hope of this project that the new paradigm can help the Chinese pedagogical community re-conceptualize the field towards a more transcultural direction, and therefore, facilitate new ways for both twenty-first century teachers and learners to make their classroom experiences more productive and enjoyable.