Chinese Immigrant Teachers in American Institutions of Higher Education: Challenge, Adaptation, and Development

Abstract

This paper explores Chinese immigrant teachers’ career challenge, adaptation and development in American institutions of higher education. The researcher used a qualitative approach to explore two respondents and found that language barrier, feeling of isolation, pressure of teaching, difficulty in doing research are the four major challenges that Chinese immigrant teachers have in their experiences. Besides, the researcher also found that personality matter in adaptation. Quiet person tends to adapt to the new culture easier. Because of the challenges, both of the Chinese immigrant teachers have ordinary mind without any aggressive plans in career development. Both of the respondents didn’t feel any racial bias or prejudice in their field. But one of the respondent mentioned that people who get their degrees from American universities or European universities are more likely to be employed in American universities. Those who get their degrees from universities in Asia are difficult to be acknowledged by American universities.