This study has investigated the problems that Montreal Chinese immigrant students
encountered during their learning Chinese culture as they are also attempting to integrate
into local culture. A research approach was taken to determine whether the study of two
transcultural artists, Xu Bing and Gu Xiong, can help the students learn their own culture
and the local culture. From the case study, it was found that the two artists' work and
their attitudes have a great potential to help students bridge the host culture and their
heritage culture. I have also designed lessons with power point presentations about these
two artists and tried to use them in the teaching practices at a Chinese weekend school.
However, I was not able to implement this teaching approach in the school due to their
little awareness and interest in art and the economic concerns with their children's future
career selection. From cultural art activities in both Chinese and English schools, I found
Banks (1989) level one and two approaches could stimulate students' interests in cultures
and arts but do not much help students understand how the local culture and other
cultures are interconnected and interrelated. Although the contributions and additive
approaches represent possible beginnings for helping students to understand art from
Chinese culture and other cultures in general, when I tried to move further to a higher
level of cultural integration in the Chinese school I was not successful. The implication
from the case study of these transcultural artists demonstrated that their work could
provide linkage between Chinese culture and North American culture. It also related to
Chinese immigrant students' life. In my thesis, I tried to demonstrate that the
transcultural artist approach could reinforce a cross-cultural understanding especially for
Chinese immigrant students to learn the relationship between their own culture and the
local culture. I also tried to explore whether we can move from lower level approaches to
the higher level approach identified by Banks (1989) to reflect sociocultural diversity in
the curriculum by studying these two transcultural artists, Gu Xiong and Xu Bing. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/16672 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Pu, Lin |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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