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Examining Chinese Faculties’ Understanding and Perspectives Through Experience of Teaching International Students

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Culturally Responsive Teaching

Taylor, 2010). Methodologically, this study employs an integrated sequential mixed-methods design where each phase builds upon the previous to systematically combine qualitative and quantitative approaches (Cha, 2021). The research follows a three-phase structure, beginning with an exploratory qualitative phase, transitioning into a quantitative survey phase, and concluding with an explanatory qualitative phase. This study finds that faculty in Shenyang, China, possess strong conceptual awareness of CRT and acknowledge its value in fostering student engagement and cross-cultural learning. However, their implementation is uneven due to individual, institutional, and socio-cultural barriers. This study re-examines the promises and challenges of internationalization by highlighting the gap between policy and pedagogical realities in Chinese universities. This study also highlights the central role of faculty as agents of educational cohesion, capable of navigating cultural, linguistic, and institutional divides. It argues that when faculty are equipped with appropriate tools and culturally responsive pedagogical perspectives, they can act as mediators of cross-cultural understanding. By examining the personal, instructional, and institutional dimensions of CRT, this research demonstrates how both systemic structures and interpersonal practices can either perpetuate or help reconcile divisions within internationalized higher education settings. By adopting a localized lens, this study reveals how internationalization and diversity are negotiated on the ground and provides practical insight into CRT’s potential to foster intercultural understanding in everyday teaching.

This research explores how faculty in Chinese universities understand and implement culturally responsive teaching (CRT) as their classrooms become more culturally diverse through internationalization. This study is guided by activity theory as its theoretical framework, which views teaching and learning as socially mediated activities shaped by the interactions among individuals, tools, community, and rules (Engeström, 1987). Activity theory helps analyze how faculty members engage with CRT within the broader context of institutional structures and internationalization in Chinese higher education. The conceptual framework of three dimensions of CRT provides the lens to understand how educators recognize and respond to students’ cultural backgrounds in their pedagogical practices (Richards et al., 2007

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