Faculty of Education The “me” with them and the “them” within me: Negotiating ethnic identity in culturally diverse schools Jan Gube Education, Ethnicity, and Inequality: Issues and Insights Symposium Hong Kong Baptist University 12 – 13 July 2013

Faculty of Education Larger Project Based on my doctoral work that explores the ethnic identity negotiation and formation of senior secondary Filipino students in a Hong Kong designated school (financially supported culturally diverse school in the public system) Progress – just finished my second interview yesterday! (first phase)

Faculty of Education Focus In this presentation the notion of dialogical self is employed to examine the nexus between the construction of ethnic self in institutional context

Faculty of Education The Challenge “effective schooling must be situated within its appropriate cultural and social contexts and build upon the skills, including native language, and values important within the students’ communities” (McInerney, 2010, para. 7) The 3 ‘U’s Unacknowledged cultural diversity Unaddressed discrimination Unrecognised pedagogocal challenges (Connelly & Gube, 2013)

Faculty of Education

If some Hong Kong-ers struggle with their own Chinese identity, then what more for ethnic minority individuals who are trying to identify themselves as a local person?

Faculty of Education 1 more ‘U’ – The Unheard Question Mirror, mirror on the wall, who am I among them all? (Woo, 2009, p.85)

Faculty of Education The Vygotskian Response “Through others we become ourselves” (Vygotsky, 1997, p.105)

Faculty of Education Ethnic Identity: A Dialogue between Self and Other “An affiliative construct, where an individual is viewed by themselves and by others as belonging to a particular ethnic or cultural group.” (Trimble & Dickson, 2005, p.418)

Faculty of Education Ethnic Identity: A Dialogue between Self and Other Hermans (2001): “Dialogical self” Recognises the multiplicity and fluidity of identity construction Based on Bakhtin’s notion of polyphony (different things people say that linger in our mind) The I-position s “can agree, disagree, understand, misunderstand, oppose, contradict, question, challenge and even ridicule the I in another position” (p.249, emphasis added) Tied to a particular time and space

Faculty of Education Ethnic Identity Stage Model vs. Dialogical Self Phinnean Stage Model Stage 1: Unexamined Ethnic Identity Stage 2: Ethnic Identity Search Stage 3: Ethnic Identity Achievement Dialogical Self Theory

Faculty of Education Vivek Mabubani Example I grew up in Hong Kong in an Indian household. I had a whole cultural mix-up—at home we spoke English, whereas when I went to school it was very local. I definitely faced a lot of challenges because I was surrounded by non-Indians. When I was in primary school, other children thought that I looked weird, but the only reason was because I was an alien. A lot of the time, the awkwardness occurs because locals see me as a foreigner, but I see myself as a local. (Source:

Faculty of Education The Big Other - School Vadeboncoeur, Vellos and Goessling (2011) offered a 3-tiered framework to examine individual’s identity construction in a learning context Individual acting with mediational means Social relationships that constitute Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (i.e. knowledge gap between learner and more capable individuals) and everyday practices Social relations constituted dialectically through institutional contexts (p.230)

Teacher Student ( Individual ) Social practices (classroom activities) Social institution (designated school) Social relations (Chinese teachers with ethnic minority students) Links through economic, political, and educational policy, ideology, funding, discourses Social relationships constituting ZPD Social Institution Social practices Individual

Faculty of Education Implications At school level – ways that teachers and students are grouped and streamed at an institution At classroom level – ways that teaching and school practices mediated by the institution (i.e. resources, policies) At individual level – ways that teaching and school practices mediate experiences of students and how these experiences prompt ethnic identity negotiation and formation

Faculty of Education Thoughts in the Field (in 2011) I was at the hall of a designated primary school and looking at a yellow sign on a pillar that says “Speak only Chinese or English” What broader educational policies inform this rule? Why is this rule necessary at the school? How is this rule enforced by the teachers? What is its implication on the interaction between teachers and students? How would ethnic minority students see themselves culturally when their ethnic language is suppressed?