“The Monkey King Meets the Spiderman”: Narrative Inquiry into Chinese Students’ Academic Socialization Experiences in a U.S. University

Abstract

This narrative study explores four Chinese students’ academic socialization experiences in one research-intensive public university in the US. By drawing upon Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice and Gee’s (2000) theorizing on identity as the synthesized theoretical framework, this research uncovers four Chinese students’ academic socialization stories nestled in the shifting cross-cultural landscape. Meanwhile, this study reveals that the Chinese students’ academic socialization intersects a matrix of factors, which can be categorized into “personal landscape” and “professional landscape.” Last, this narrative case study concluded that the Chinese students’ academic socialization involves the continuous negotiations of their multiple identities embedded in the cross-cultural contexts.

Keywords

academic socialization / Chinese students / communities of practice / identity construction / narrative inquiry

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2017 Higher Education Press and Springer