Cultural influence on Chinese teachers’ perceptions and beliefs in a Danish context

The paper presents the results of a pilot study designed to investigate native Chinese teachers’ beliefs and perceptions in Danish teaching context and how culture impacts their perceptions and beliefs. Ethnographic interviews were utilized to explore their perceptions on students’ characteristics, teaching methods, and relevant experiences of four native Chinese who have been teaching in Denmark for many years. It demonstrates that teachers’ perceptions reflect two different educational cultures which have shaped and are reshaping their beliefs about students’ characteristics and teaching methods in Danish context. It suggests that teachers’ cultural backgrounds and the new cultural contexts in which they are teaching cause their belief development from more teacher-oriented to more student-oriented. However, their belief about teaching methods also implies a complexity of combining two competing “Chinese ways of teaching” and “Danish ways of teaching”, which suggested their efforts of adapting to a new context.