Dear all,
Could you please direct me to any research, report or literature related to the international schools in China? I recently had a freshman student from Shanghai talk to me about her “identity crisis.” She was born and raised in Shanghai and all her family are Shanghainese. She attended international schools in Shanghai since kindergarten and has been speaking more English than Chinese (Mandarin and Shanghainese included) in her life, even at home. At the international schools, almost all her classmates were Chinese but they spoke English to each other and followed American pop culture closely. She used the Chinese textbooks for foreigners and Chinese literature classes were optional with very few interested students. Ironically, she speaks more Chinese than before here at Purdue, which has a huge population of international students from mainland China. Now she wants to pursue a major in Asian Studies and investigate the identity issues of people like her. I find this phenomenon very interesting and also want to help her. If you could share your knowledge and/or experiences related to the international schools, it’ll be very helpful and much appreciated.
Thanks,
Hongjian Wang <wang2512@purdue.edu>