reading the world through words: cultural themes in heritage chinese language textbooks

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Reading the World Through Words:Cultural Themes in Heritage ChineseLanguage TextbooksXiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen aa National Institute of Education, Nanyang TechnologicalUniversity , SingaporePublished online: 19 Dec 2008.

To cite this article: Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen (2008) Reading the World Through Words:Cultural Themes in Heritage Chinese Language Textbooks, Language and Education, 22:2,95-113, DOI: 10.2167/le721.0

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Reading the World Through Words: CulturalThemes in Heritage Chinese LanguageTextbooks

Xiao Lan Curdt-ChristiansenNational Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University,Singapore

This paper explores the social and cultural knowledge embedded in the textbooks forlanguage and literacy education in a Chinese heritage language school, the ZhonguoSchool, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It examines how Chinese language arts text-books introduce the child reader to cultural knowledge considered legitimate andvalued in China as well as in Chinese diasporan communities. Furthermore, it looksat the construction of cultural knowledge in Chinese language textbooks in relationto the mainstream ideology to which immigrant children are exposed in and out ofmainstream school classrooms. It looks at how the power relationship between legiti-mate cultural knowledge in majority and minority contexts is established and to whatextent it affects language minority students’ literacy practices in mainstream schooland heritage language school contexts. Data sources are the Chinese textbooks usedfrom kindergarten to Grade 5 in a Chinese heritage language school.

doi: 10.2167/le721.0

Keywords: textbook, cultural knowledge, ideology, discourse analysis, literacypractice, Chinese language

Translation:The new school year had begun, our teacher distributed new books to us. Shesaid:

A good student will study with conscientiousness, and write characterswith concentrated attention and diligence. We listen to what our teachersays. We will study conscientiously and diligently to become good stu-dents.

This excerpt is from Zhongwen Chinese textbooks, Vol. 2 (Shiyongban, 1997).Zhongwen Chinese is a set of textbooks which many overseas Chinese heritagelanguage schools employ to teach Chinese language arts. Like the abovemen-tioned text, many of the lessons include traditional Chinese cultural valuesand social norms, which Chinese people generally consider important and

0950-0782/08/02 095-19 $20.00/0 C© 2008 X. L. Curdt-ChristiansenLANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Vol. 22, No. 2, 2008

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96 Language and Education

appropriate for socialising children to become ‘good students’ and the ‘rightpersons’. These texts serve as a framework for providing literacy resources forchildren to be engaged in particular sociocultural practices. In Freirean sense,reading these texts – reading the words – entails a socialisation process for Chi-nese children that includes apprenticing certain ways of acting, doing, valuingand being in the world.

In this paper, I explore the social and cultural knowledge embedded in thetextbooks for language and literacy education in a Chinese heritage languageschool, the Zhonguo School, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In particular, I focuson how Chinese language arts textbooks introduce the child reader to culturalknowledge and social norms that are valued in China as well as in Chinese dias-poran communities. Furthermore, I discuss the construction of cultural knowl-edge in Chinese language textbooks in relation to the mainstream ideology towhich immigrant children are exposed in and out of mainstream school class-rooms. I aim to explore how the power relationship between legitimate culturalknowledge in majority and minority contexts is established and to what extentit affects language minority students’ literacy and cultural practices. Becauseof the constraints of this paper, my analysis is limited to the Chinese textbooksused from kindergarten to Grade 5 in the Zhonguo Heritage Language School.

How Are the Social and Cultural Values, Beliefs and AttitudesPortrayed Through Text?

Theoretical frameworkWithin a broad sociocultural–critical perspective on literacy practices, I draw

on the work of Freire and Macedo (1987), Bourdieu (1991), the New Literacytheorists (Gee, 1996, 2005; Street, 2000) and sociocultural theorists (Perez, 2004;Vygotsky, 1986) to analyse the sociocultural elements in the selected Chinesetextbooks.

Freire and Macedo’s (1987) concept of ‘reading the word and the world’ providesa conceptual frame for me to explore the relationship between literacy and socio-cultural practices. While Freire’s works focus on literacy as empowerment inLatin American adults, I use his concepts to emphasise the construct of culturalcompetencies in the process of becoming literate in Chinese for children whoattend a Chinese heritage language school in Montreal. In the Freirean sense,‘culture is the way in which the People understand and express their world andhow the People understand themselves in their relation to their world’ (1987: 86).While understanding and reading the world may precede reading the words, itis also facilitated through the reading of words. In a Chinese context, ‘readingthe world and word’ (Freire, 1987: 86) involves not only the complex learning ofChinese characters, but also the subtle sociocultural–historical knowledge asso-ciated with the characters. This knowledge serves to ‘support the performance ofsocial activities and social identities’ which in turn help produce, reproduce andtransform ‘cultures, social groups and institutions’ (Gee, 2005: 1). What is writtenin textbooks and how they are written reflect particular perspectives on various‘politics’. ‘Politics’ in Gee’s sense refers to ‘how social goods are thought about,

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Reading the World Through Words 97

argued over, and distributed in society’ (Gee, 2005: 2). By using grammar andrhetorical strategies, authors write textbooks containing cultural knowledge toenact ‘activities and identities’ (p. 7). Such language-in-use/discourse, accord-ing to Gee, always involves ‘the tacit “theory” of what counts as a “normal”person and the “right” ways to think, feel, and behave’ (1996: ix). In a broadersense the use of language, including literacy, entails producing and receivingculturally recognised, socially accepted, and ideologically shaped ways of beingin the world. In other words, literacy and the world are dynamically intercon-nected, and the act of reading the words is intertwined with the knowledge ofculture and knowledge of the world.

This critical understanding of the act of reading involves more than merely thedecoding of the written word. New Literacy theorists (Gee, 1996, 2005; Perez,2004; Street, 2000, 2003) assert that literacy practice is a set of socioculturalpractices that are rooted in particular worldviews which reflect the values,cultures and patterns of privileges in different social contexts. Through learningto read and through reading itself, children acquire socioculturally appropriateinformation, values and ways of thinking and doing that authors of texts ortextbooks assume children should have. Thus, written texts are resources forchildren’s socialisation into literacy practices in particular situations. Literacyeducation involves complex human activities that are situated in particularsocial and cultural contexts, and becoming literate is a process of becoming aknower of a particular culture, which in the context of this paper is Chinese.

As ‘cultural knowers’, individuals possess the ‘cultural capitals’ (i.e. a certainamount of social and cultural knowledge) that allow them to act appropriatelyin a given context (Bourdieu, 1991). In the context of Chinese schools bothin China and abroad, the appropriate ways of behaving and acting includeconformity, obedience and respect for authorities. These appropriate ways area system of dispositions, practices and representations, acquired socioculturalcapitals in different communities of practices which allow individuals to act withease in these communities (Bourdieu, 1991; Luke & Carrington, 2002; Wenger,1998). However, becoming literate does not entail only the learning of socialand cultural knowledge in a given context. It also provides an understanding of‘the political and ideological interests and principles at work in the pedagogicalencounters’ (Giroux, 1987: 18), because literacy education is always saturatedwith political interests and ideological intentions. It is between the teachers andthe learners and in the students’ daily encounters with majority and minoritycultures that political and ideological stances are developed.

Drawing on Street’s ‘ideological models of literacy’ (2000), I examine therelationships between ideology and literacy education in the context of theZhonguo Heritage Language School in Montreal, Quebec. I view ideologies asparticular kinds of historical and cultural perceptions of how the world works.Gee (1996) defines ideology as ‘a social theory which involves generalizations(beliefs, claims) about the ways in which goods are distributed in society’ (1996:21). He refers to goods as being ‘anything that the people in the society generallybelieve are beneficial to have or harmful not to have, whether this be life, space,time, “good” schools, “good” jobs, wealth, status, power, control, or whatever’(p. 21). Such ideologies are sets of social norms and cultural practices carried out

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over and over again through generations by various institutions and domains,in political propaganda, and through education (Apple, 2004).

In China, Confucianism has been adopted as the official ideology of manydynasties over the last two millennia. Although other philosophy and religionpractices such as Taoism and Buddhism have influenced the ways of living ofChinese people, Confucianism has been the major influence on education, lit-eracy and the Weltanschauung of many Chinese people (Taylor & Taylor, 1995).Even in our time, it still exerts influence on peoples’ social practices and attitudestowards education and literacy practices. Confucian ideology promotes the loy-alty of citizens to the ruler, the respect for authority, the devotion of children totheir parents and the obedience of the younger generation to the older one. Con-fucianism has also fostered respect for learning and positive attitudes towardseducation. The core values of Confucianism include the following tenets: all canlearn regardless of social class and intelligence; it is effort, intrinsic motivationand willpower that are decisive for academic success (Curdt-Christiansen, 2004;Watkins & Biggs, 2001). Even today, the presence of the Confucian ideology isshown through various children’s texts and school textbooks (Liu, 2005).

Generally, the acquisition of Chinese literacy in the context of Chinese schools,whether in China or abroad, is restricted to certain standard textbooks and thenational curriculum in China. At the Chinese Heritage Language School inMontreal, learning Chinese means studying a set of textbooks that are designedby the Chinese government to accommodate the needs of overseas Chinese stu-dents in heritage language schools and which have a content deemed appropri-ate for this purpose. In this paper, based on the literacy theoretical frameworksof Freire, Gee, Street and other New Literacy Study theorists, I assert that theact of reading words is a process of uncovering the meaning-making potentialsof individuals’ life worlds. By drawing on the concepts of ideology, literacy, and‘reading the words and the world’, I seek to understand how social and culturalknowledge is used, what cultural themes and socialisation issues are embed-ded in the textbooks used and how the child readers are introduced to theirsociocultural world through ‘the reading of the words’ (Freire, 1987: 86).

Situating the Context of Texts and Literacy Education in ChineseIn order to maintain the Chinese culture and language, quite a few heritage

language schools in Montreal have been established, employing different re-gional languages (Mandarin or Cantonese) and phonetic systems, Pinyin orZhuyinfuhao, as instructional tools for the teaching and learning of Chinesecharacters (Curdt-Christiansen, 2004).

The Zhonguo School, in which the analysed textbooks are employed, wasfounded in 1994 as a private Saturday school to respond to the need of immigrantChinese families for language training and cultural education in Chinese. Theschool functions as a community centre, provides sociocultural continuity forparents and students, and serves as an extended ‘cultural family’ for newcomersand second-generation immigrant families alike. The Zhonguo School is anautonomous and independent community school. It receives no governmentgrants; it has no formal connection to the school boards of Quebec and hasobtained no formal public support. According to the school’s principal, the

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founding purpose was to build a school where Chinese (Mandarin) would betaught and Pinyin (Chinese phonetic script) would be applied to the teachingof simplified Chinese characters, the standard script of modern China. Todaythe mission of the school is to establish a space for transmitting and carryingforward the Chinese language, culture and traditions in Canada.

Over the years the Zhonguo School has developed; it is now a major Chineseheritage language school in the Montreal region with over 50 classes and morethan 40 teachers (Zhonguo School Report, 2003). The school has a population ofabout 1000 students who come from all over the greater Montreal area and thesurrounding suburbs; some students even come from Vermont, USA. Over 80%of the students are from Mainland China, 10% are from Hong Kong and the re-maining 10% are either from Taiwan or are Caucasian. Most of the children speakone of the Chinese language varieties (regionalects) at home. They attend either aFrench or an English school during the week, which the children refer to as ‘theireveryday school’. The Zhonguo School has been using a curriculum importedfrom Mainland China but designed for Chinese children living abroad. The cor-responding textbooks and other materials, produced by Overseas Affairs Office,State Council, PR China, are provided free of charge to schools that promote Chi-nese education. Textbooks for the teaching of mathematics are still those that arebased on the national curriculum in China. The teaching methodology is mainlyteacher-centred, and all teaching is in Mandarin (Curdt-Christiansen, 2004). Inaddition to courses in Chinese and mathematics at various levels, other coursessuch as Chinese chess, Chinese art, children’s art, drawing/painting, nationaldance, Chinese chorus singing, tai chi and Chinese martial arts are also offered.For newcomers, courses in English and French are available.

Cultural Themes and Social ValuesI take the position that literacy education can never be ideologically neutral

(Gee, 1996; Street, 2000). Texts construct a particular view of the world and in-fluence our social behaviours and interactions. Indeed, the relationship betweenideology and education is particularly strong and explicit in China. Ideologicalteaching through school literacy education is a common practice that often re-flects contemporary social and political doctrines embedded in Chinese politicaldiscourses. In imperial times, Confucianism reigned; during the cultural revolu-tion, Maoism governed; nowadays, a modern kind of communism or socialismdominates. Irrespective of the prevailing political thinking, textbooks with sto-ries, fairy tales, fables and other genres have always been used with the purposeof teaching Chinese moral and cultural values. Consequently, children learnwritten language through the reading of texts that explicitly teach them cultur-ally appropriate values and socially accepted norms. Chinese textbooks tendto contain many of the culturally valued didactics, such as perseverance, filialpiety, diligence, obedience, dedication and to give emphasis to the importanceof effort, achievement, patriotism, etc. In the ‘General Guideline for PrimarySchool Chinese Language Education’, the importance of moral and ideologicaleducation is emphasised as follows:

[Teachers] should cultivate in students love for their native languageand fine national cultural heritage, cultivate in them a healthy and noble

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temperament and interest and certain aesthetic abilities, and cultivate inthem socialist ideology, moral values and patriotism (Ministry of Educa-tion, China, 2000).

Having such a guideline indicates that the process of acquiring the Chineselanguage and becoming literate in it is replete with sociocultural practices,cultural values and ideological over- and undertones, which I explore in the restof this paper.

Data Sources and AnalysisThe data used in this paper are from a set of primary Chinese language

textbooks used at the Zhonguo School and provided and produced by OverseasAffairs Office, State Council, PR China. Table 1 provides an overview to illustratethe cultural and moral themes embedded in the Chinese textbooks. In this paperI use the terms ‘cultural values’ and ‘moral values’ interchangeably as I see moralvalues as embedded in the culture of a society. For example, to have faith in thevalue of seniority is considered a moral belief as well as a cultural one.

In Table 1, I have six rows and five columns. The rows indicate the six gradesof the elementary school. The columns list the various themes I have identifiedin the textbooks. For example, the theme filial piety appeared three times inthe textbook for kindergarten, twice for the first grade, did not appear for thesecond grade and appeared once for the third grade. In addition to the culturalthemes in the table, there are also other themes and moral values that explicitlypermeate the textbooks, such as independence (1n2, once in Grade 2); concen-tration (1n3, once in Grade 3); benevolence (1n3, 1n5); sense of timing (1n4);honesty (1n4, 2n5); being healthy (3n5); thrift; sense of rightness (1n5); inde-pendent thinking (2n5); being courageous and skilful (1n5), etc. Notable in thetable is the frequency of certain themes that change from lower grades to highergrades. While there is more emphasis on conformity and obedience in the lowergrades, there is more emphasis on achievement and patriotism, collectivism andsense of cultural superiority in the higher grades. Such systematic organising ofmoral and cultural themes in the texts contains an implicit message that assumesthat obedience and conformity can lead to patriotism and educational achieve-ment. As these cultural and moral values are considered important elementsfor children’s personal development and character-building, they are explicitlyand implicitly included in the numerous literacy activities that are carried outin the socialisation process of becoming literate.

TextsIn the next section, I select a few representative texts that contain recurrently

used examples of cultural and moral values such as perseverance, seniority, theimportance of education and modesty. Moreover, I examine these texts to illus-trate how some of the cultural and moral values are represented and portrayedto those who are in the process of becoming literate in the Chinese language.The analysis includes a concrete textual examination of passages where I employGee’s notion of discourse analysis. It looks at how cultural knowledge is builtand represented through discourse devices in the texts. Moreover, the origins

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Tab

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Cul

tura

lthe

mes

and

mor

alva

lues

Boo

kT

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e

Fili

alP

erse

vera

nce

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onfo

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yA

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ent

Mod

erat

ion

Alt

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mP

iety

(col

lect

ivis

m)

(res

pect

,(e

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tion

,(m

odes

ty)

(Obe

dien

ce)

poli

tene

ss,

mot

ivat

ion)

seni

orit

y)

Kin

der

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en3

22

31

1

12

12

12

1

22

22

23

31

33

21

34

1

41

12

16

11

52

26

42

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of these texts will be examined with regard to incidents in Chinese history andwell-known lines of classical poetry. These stories and historical events can,seen from an anthropological perspective, provide an intriguing glimpse intothe way Chinese people lived and viewed the world until recently.

PerseveranceIn China, perseverance has been encouraged for centuries as an important

virtue for character-building. Children learn written language through the read-ing of texts that explicitly teach them how to achieve goals through persistenceand determination. As an example of such practices, I have selected the textshown in Figure 1 from the Grade 3 Chinese language arts textbook that em-phasises the value of perseverance.

Translation:

– To grind an iron pestle down to a needle

When Li Bai was young, he did not study hard. Instead, he often ran outof the classroom to play outside.

One day, Li Bai ran to a riverbank; there he saw an old woman, grinding athick iron pestle down to a needle. Li Bai asked, ‘How can you grind sucha thick iron rod into a needle? Is it possible?’ The old woman answered, ‘Igrind it every day, every month, so of course I can grind it into a needle.’

Figure 1 – To grind an iron rod into a needle, adapted from the Grade 3Chinese textbook (Zhongwen Shiyongban, 1997, Vol. 4, p. 18).

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Hearing what the old woman said, Li Bai understood a truth. Ever sincethen, he studied very diligently every day. Later he became a celebratedpoet.

In this text, the cultural communication about working hard and diligentlyis established by help of several grammatical devices. In the first paragraph,two independent sentences are connected by a cohesive device, the conjunction‘instead’, creating a perspective that ‘not studying hard’ is an unacceptable be-haviour. The main claim in the first sentence that ‘he [Li Bai] did not study hard’is asserted as a foregrounded clause, whereas the subordinate clause ‘whenhe was young’ is the background context signalling the ‘logical relationship’(Gee, 2005: 191). This ‘logical relationship’ is further established by the secondsentence ‘instead, he often ran out of the classroom to play outside’. The rela-tionship between the first and second sentence builds an implicit meaning ofequation that ‘play outside’ = ‘didn’t study hard’ = unacceptable behaviour.Child readers are positioned in this particular cultural context to accept a hiddenauthoritative command to ‘study hard’.

Li Bai’s ‘unacceptable’ behaviour was changed when he encountered an oldwoman who was grinding a thick iron pestle down to a needle. Direct speech asdiscourse resource is used in this context to make the child reader live the ‘re-ality’ of ‘grinding iron pestle’. The significant cultural knowledge of willpower,perseverance and effort is reflected through the conversation between young LiBai and the old woman – ‘How can you grind such a thick iron rod into a needle?Is it possible?’ and ‘I grind it every day, every month, so of course I can grindit into a needle’. Notice in the old woman’s reply, how she uses the adverbialconstructs ‘every day’ and ‘every month’ to create the impression of temporalimmensity. The adjective ‘every’, used repeatedly to modify ‘day’ and ‘month’,emphasises the amount of time that she is putting into this task and thus makesthe concept of ‘willpower’, ‘perseverance’ and ‘effort’ come to mind.

Gee (2005) asserts that we always use language, written or spoken, to take aparticular perspective on building and rebuilding our worlds. Language can beused with various linguistic ‘participants’ such as nouns and noun phrases (Gee,2005: 41) to give people different roles in the action and event. Language can alsobe used to convey perspectives as to what is considered ‘good’, ‘appropriate’and ‘valuable’. In the last paragraph of this text, the concept of ‘hard working’,‘diligent’ and ‘persistent’ is reinforced by a sequence of action and reactionthat Li Bai undertook. First, ‘Li Bai understood a truth’, then ‘he studied verydiligently every day’. As consequence, ‘he became a celebrated poet’. Noticethat in the main clause, ‘Li Bai understood a truth’, but the nature of this ‘truth’is not explicitly stated in the text. This is a rhetorical technique, used by theauthor, to demand the child reader to ask himself ‘what truth?’ The answer isgiven in the context, and it is implicit that he who can find the answer andespouses it will one day become a great man.

The original valuing of persistence can be traced back to Confucius’s teach-ings, in particular his famous statement that ‘everyone can become a sage’. Thebelief that everyone can be educated regardless of his social class and innateability is the underlying tenet for Chinese people to place high value on edu-cation and perseverance, which is reflected through the line ‘he studied very

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diligently every day’. According to Confucian philosophy, learning problemscan be overcome by studying harder and more diligently. Knowledge and capa-bility are not innate characteristics, but are qualities achieved through learningattentively and studying conscientiously. Confucianism holds that all can learnif only they make the effort. Therefore, effort and willpower are the core featuresof the learning process. Such practices are still widely encouraged and are builtinto the children’s social environment through literacy resources like the textanalysed here. The message of this story has been rendered into an idiom, oftenpreceded by another idiom, and used as an adage:which can be translated as ‘if you work hard enough at it, you can grind an ironpestle down to a needle’. From very early childhood on, Chinese children arecultivated into these qualities through socialisation procedures that produce ‘theinternalized dispositions’ (Biggs, 1999: 58) and ‘ways of being in the world’ (Gee,1996: 127). These conscious and unconscious internalisations of ‘legitimate’ cul-tural knowledge signify the ‘cultural capital’ needed for Chinese children toparticipate in the Zhonguo School community of practices.

Seniority (conformity, respect for the elderly)As shown in Table 1, seniority is another cultural theme that surfaces in

the textbooks. The discourse of seniority is found to be constructed from per-spectives such as respect, conformity and politeness. From early childhood on,Chinese children are socialised to have a sense of the importance of seniority, toshow respect for the elderly and, at the same time, to feel responsibility for andto take care of the younger. They are taught to be obedient, conform to groupnorms and to be modest in their day-to-day doing and behaving. These culturalvalues as legitimate knowledge shape the moral identities of the Chinese childreaders. The passage in Figure 2 is an example of such a text.

Translation:

Kong Rong and the Pears

About a thousand years ago, there was a Chinese boy named Kong Rong.He had five older brothers and one younger brother.

One day, his father placed a plate of pears on the table for the boys to eat.Kong Rong was the first one to pick a pear, but he picked up the smallestone. Noticing Kong Rong’s choice with contentment, his father asked him:‘Why do you pick the smallest one among so many pears?’ Kong Ronganswered: ‘Big brothers are older; I should leave the bigger ones for them.’The father continued, ‘What about your younger brother?’ ‘Little brotheris younger than me, I should also leave the bigger ones for him’ answeredKong Rong. Hearing what Kong Rong said, the father was very pleasedand said: ‘You are a good child.’

This story emphasises the very Chinese concept of the obligation that onehas to respect one’s elders and to care for one’s youngers. This moral messageis conveyed through a story grammar that establishes the setting (a thousandyears ago), followed by the initial event (his father placed a plate of pearson the table for the boys to eat), through interaction between the father and

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Figure 2 Kong Rong and the Pears (Zhongwen Shiyongban, 1997, Vol. 3, p. 25).

Kong Rong, and reaches the resolution ending in a moral lesson. The storyconcludes with praise from Kong Rong’s father; ‘you are a good child’. The moralmessage is not explicitly verbalised in the story, neither by Kong Rong nor by hisfather. So the child reader has to associate the implicit moral message with thefinal statement/praise from Kong Rong’s father. Praising Kong Rong’s conductenforces and confirms the cultural value of self-effacing, modest, respectfuland caring behaviour. The praise by Kong Rong’s father also conveys anotherimplicit message of pro-social behaviour as it establishes Kong Rong’s father,the head of the family, as an authoritative figure whom children should alwaysrespect. This implicit message assumes that child readers understand certaincommon ‘recognisable’ values and beliefs, which make them members of theChinese community and enable them to be ‘players’ in the discourse.

‘Recognition and being recognized’ (Gee, 2005: 26) is the key to understandhow individuals become the ‘carriers’ of a certain cultural knowledge and socialvalues. Being able to understand the value of ‘sharing pear’ and showing respectfor the father, child readers in the context of literacy learning become recognisedas the cultural ‘carriers’. Through learning to read and through reading itself,children acquire culturally appropriate information, traditional values, culturalknowledge and accepted ways of doing and thinking. This process of becomingliterate enables them to become both recognised and recognisable as ‘Chinesepersons’. This text illustrates that literacy education is integrated into the so-cialisation of childrearing and is an important aspect of child socialisation. The

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explicit content of the text is just a story about pear sharing. However, the im-plicit meaning of praising self-constraint and generosity, and the emphasis onthe concept of obligations towards older and younger siblings are underlinedby the description of the pleased father and his final praise.

For centuries, educational institutions have used such classical texts to pro-duce ‘cultural carriers’ and cultural ‘knowers’. In the act of reading, child readersare expected to read their immediate world, filled with cultural traditions andmoral values. These traditions and values are reflected in the texts, the words, aswell as in the children’s daily encounter with parents, siblings and other com-munity members, i.e. their contexts of living (Freire, 1987). Decoding or readingleads the child readers to understand the meaning of the traditional culturalvalues, to interpret their experiences with multiple cultures and to reflect ontheir interpretations of their worlds.

Importance of educationTable 1 shows that ‘importance of education’ is another frequent topic appear-

ing in the Chinese language arts textbooks. There are 17 text passages of thiskind. Since ancient times, Chinese people have held education in high esteem.In order to instil the importance of education and the value of learning in theirchildren, storybooks and other reading materials are filled with themes aimedat motivating children to pursue studying. The text given in Figure 3 from theGrade 3 textbook emphasises the importance of education and reading.

Translation:

Little Teacher

More than a thousand years ago, there was in China a child called Jia Kui.People called him ‘little teacher’. Why was that?

It was because Jia Kui’s house was not far from a school where manychildren studied. One day, when he heard the chanting of reading, hewanted to know what the school children were doing, so he ran to theschool and stood outside the classroom. As he was too short to look in, heasked help from his older brother who then lifted him up. He was verypleased to see that the children were reading. So he followed their readingand read after them sentence by sentence very conscientiously. When hegot home, his father also told him the meaning of the text of the school book.

In this way, he stayed outside the classroom and listened to the teachingfor six years and was able to recite many texts. Therefore, Jia Kui, who wasless than twelve years old, was able to teach others.

In this text, we see that knowledge is attainable, irrespective of the materiallearning environment, through a series of actions initiated by Jai Kui. Lexicaland syntactic choices (e.g. heard, wanted, followed, stayed and read), and thestory encapsulate viewpoints on what is valuable and encouraged (study evenwithout books). The fact that Jia Kui stayed outside the classroom for six yearsand became a little teacher illustrates that being inside the classroom, sitting ata table and having a textbook are not essential to become literate; what mattersis one’s attitude towards education and learning. This cultural knowledge is re-alised through the mapping of language function and form (Gee, 2005). Notice

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Figure 3 Little Teacher (Shiyongban, 1997, Vol. 3, p. 35).

the last paragraph of the text where two independent sentences are connectedwith the conjunction ‘therefore’. These are language forms. The function of theconjunction ‘therefore’ is to establish a causal relationship between the two sen-tences. It makes clear to readers that Jia Kui deserved his title ‘little teacher’ (JiaKui, who was less than twelve years old, was able to teach others). The func-tions, carried by the forms in this story and similar stories, provide ‘discoursemodels’ that child readers use to make sense of their world and experienceswith regard to schools and education. As child readers make sense of the story,they form a theory about what is important in the process of learning and whymaterials are not essential in that process.

There is no doubt that the purpose of such stories and texts is to foster respectfor learning and education. They provide the children with the understandingthat educational goals can be achieved regardless of the material conditions.Through the various language forms and functions, such stories promote respectfor education, foster the concept of egalitarianism and emphasise that economicbackground and other social factors play less important roles in learning andachieving academic excellence than dedication, diligence and perseverance.

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ModestyAs literacy education and textbooks are always located within complex webs

of ideological and cultural contexts, modesty has been another major theme intextbooks for transmitting cultural knowledge. In a recent study on Chineselanguage textbooks used in China, Liu (2005) found that more than 29% of thetotal texts in primary schools contain discourses of cultural values includingrespect for authority, honesty and modesty. Table 1 shows that modesty is oneof the most important cultural values embedded in the textbooks, althoughthey are designed for children in diasporan communities. The table indicatesthat the frequency of the topic of modesty has increased from once in Grade 1to four times in Grade 3. The discourse of modesty is constructed to denouncearrogance and praise self-effacement. One of the texts presents a story entitled‘Big tree and little grass’ which contains such discourse on the cultural value ofmodesty (see Figure 4).

Translation:

Big Tree and Little Grass

Next to a big tree grew a little grass. The little grass asked the big tree: ‘Howold are you, grandpa big tree?’ The big tree replied: ‘I am still young, notyet 200 years old.’ ‘What?’ replied the little grass, ‘200 years old? It tookyou 200 years to grow that much?! Look at me: I am only 20 days old.Growing everyday, I change my appearance all the time, I shall surpassyou very soon.’

Hardly had the little grass finished his sentence, before a strong windcame, blowing him down to the ground. But the big tree was still standingthere, straight and firmly rooted.

In this story, two contrastive objects, the big tree and the little grass, havebeen used to introduce the child reader to the concept of modesty. The littlegrass’s arrogance is established through his conversation with the big tree bycontrasting their ages and their heights. The choice of different units of mea-surement is used to emphasise the dramatic differences between the oppositeobjects. The big tree, 200 years and the little grass only 20 days. The moral ofthe lesson is delivered in the last paragraph of the text where the little grass isflattened by the wind while the big tree remains standing. The implicit moralmessage implies that arrogance cannot withstand hardship and difficulties; itcan only bring people into dangerous situations just like the little grass beingflattened by the wind. This story has a double moral message: on the one hand,the child readers have to understand that showing off or being arrogant willbring disaster to themselves; on the other hand, the child readers must alsounderstand that a solid foundation and deep rooting in knowledge and cultureare important to overcome the adversities and hardships that life is likely tobring with it. The cultural beliefs and attitudes that underpin The Story of theBig Tree and the Little Grass are expressed in a Ming dynasty (1368–1644) poemby Yu Qian (Chen, 1994) which begins with the words: (Atree with deep roots does not fear a strong wind). This traditional belief in the

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Figure 4 Big Tree and Little Grass (Shiyongban, 1997, Vol. 3, p. 44).

importance of a solid base of knowledge has been a driving force in Chineseeducation and pedagogical practices until this day.

DiscussionThe texts examined in this paper illustrate that literacy education is laden

with ideological under- and overtones. These texts act as cultural and socialresources which allow the students to construct the cultural knowledge (Gee,1996) that others have deemed important and legitimate for them to acquire(Apple, 2004). Together with other sociocultural resources, which students canaccess at home, at school and in various communities, they form a solid base forstudents to interpret, understand and ‘read’ social situations. These resourcesalso serve as a framework for individuals to act upon the social worlds in whichthey find themselves.

Gee (1996) argues that children’s social worlds are composed of two majorsources: primary sources related to home, and secondary sources related toschool. Linked to these social worlds is discourse, or habitus (Bourdieu, 1991),on which children rely to interpret who they are in relation to others and howthey encode their worlds. Gee distinguishes between primary discourses andsecondary discourses (Gee, 1996). Primary discourses refer to those which peo-ple acquire early in life during primary socialisation at home in a particular

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sociocultural setting. I argue that this primary discourse should also includehome-related, community-based socialisation through heritage languageschools and religious activities. Secondary discourses refer to those thatindividuals acquire outside their home or home-related communities, such asat school and in workplaces. The boundary between the primary discourse andsecondary discourse is constantly negotiated and contested in society. Some ofthese discourses can be mutually compatible whereas others can be mutuallyincompatible or conflictual. Some social groups adopt ‘ways of living’ valuedby secondary discourse into the socialisation of their children in order to givetheir children some advantages in the process of acquiring the secondary dis-course. The most important feature of discourses is that they are ‘related tothe distribution of social power and hierarchical structure in society’ (2005:132). Bourdieu refers to discourses as ‘cultural capital’ which children acquirefrom their primary socialisation sources. Such ‘cultural capitals’ comprise ‘goodtaste’, certain kinds of prior knowledge, abilities and language forms that areconsidered legitimate and correct and that are promoted and acknowledged bymainstream schools. However, minority language children do not always cometo school with the ‘cultural capital’ favoured by mainstream schools. Oftentheir ‘cultural capital’ is poorly understood or not recognised by the teach-ers in mainstream schools. Therefore, different ‘cultural capitals’ have differentsociocultural–linguistic values and only some of them are ranked with privilegesand power.

When discourses or ‘cultural capitals’ come into contact with each other andmove among sociocultural contexts, power relationships emerge, some more,others less valued (Corson, 2000). In a majority and minority context, domi-nant cultures are promoted and disseminated through the venue of secondarydiscourses, which place minority cultures in a less valued position. From theChinese texts I have examined here, it is clear that Chinese children’s primarydiscourse through home and community-based socialisation (heritage languageschool) is in some contrast to the mainstream cultures they are experiencing intheir regular French or English schools during the week. For example, the Chi-nese culture emphasises obedience and conformity through texts such as ‘welisten to what our teacher says. We will study conscientiously and diligentlyto become good students’ (Zhongwen Shiyongban, 1997). Consequently, thoseChinese teachers who practice traditional pedagogy prefer silence, obedienceand diligence in the students in their classrooms (Hu, 2002; Morrison, 2006).The Chinese culture also holds teachers in high esteem, which accentuates re-spect for authority. The Western culture, in general, encourages individualism(Bond, 1991; DeCapua & Winstergerst, 2006). As a result, student-centred learn-ing and student participation have been encouraged and promoted in main-stream schools in recent decades. It is important to note that I am not attemptingto generalise from the examples given in this paper. It is not my intention to ar-gue that all teachers in mainstream culture encourage student participation andstudent-centred learning. Differences in cultural and teaching practices do exist.These different cultures form different discourse models that lead child readersto act accordingly to take on their ‘culturally distinctive identities’ (Gee, 2005:61). Unfortunately, the discourse models do not always ‘mingle’ smoothly witheach other. Therefore, some Chinese children may experience problems when

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adapting to the mainstream school cultures (Curdt-Christiansen, 2005). Evenmore serious is the fact that some mainstream teachers may not be aware of ormay not understand these cultural differences and therefore interpret the silenceof Chinese children in mainstream classrooms as inability to follow the activitiesin the classroom because of low intelligence, lack of interest, laziness or insuffi-cient language skills. Teachers encountering a large culturally and linguisticallydiverse student population need to understand that ‘there are many different so-cioculturally specific life-world discourses, because people from different socialand cultural groups have different ways of thinking, acting, and talking’ (Gee,2005: 63). In order to encourage student participation in classrooms, teachersneed to accept the different ways of thinking, acting and interacting. As Cum-mins (2001) argues, only when culturally and linguistically diverse studentsare encouraged to bring their primary discourses and home cultures into theclassroom, so that teaching can be built on their prior knowledge and culturalexperiences, can effective instruction take place. I would argue that teachersnot only need to encourage students to bring their cultures into the classroom,but also need to help students understand the ideological perspectives under-lying these cultural differences, so that students can expend their discourseresources to reflect and evaluate the literacy environments in which they findthemselves.

ConclusionThe content of the textbooks used at the Zhonguo Heritage Language School

in Montreal illustrates that becoming literate is not an ideologically neutralprocess. Words, stories and texts in these textbooks are laden with cultural andmoral values. Some of these texts may convey unquestionable good principlesand ideals whereas other texts teach values that conflict with the moral andethical standards of the mainstream society. When learning the words throughthe use of these culture- and moral-laden texts, Chinese immigrant childrenare expected to learn the appropriate ways of behaving, valuing and being inthe world. However, these children’s life worlds are constantly changing andare not always in harmony with each other (Curdt-Christiansen, 2005). Theirdaily encounters with multiple cultures and multiple languages are beyond thesingle form of ‘reading the world and the word’. Some of the cultural valuesthat Chinese people hold on to, such as conformity and obedience regardless ofcontext, need to be critically examined. Textbook texts should be interrogatedas social and cultural artefacts. After all, we as educators want to provide atool for the students to become critical readers of the world and the word. As‘the process of learning to read and write is an act of knowing and creating’(Freire & Macedo, 1987: 34), children need to read the meaning of culture,understand the meaning of culture and then expand their worlds of culture.In the age of transnationalism and globalisation, children’s engagement withmultiple texts requires them to become critical and competent readers withregard to decoding their multiple worlds. It is the teachers’ responsibility toinstil in children the ability to read, to critically analyse texts and to use languagein an efficient way to convey their viewpoints and express their thoughts andopinions.

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CorrespondenceAny correspondence should be directed to Dr Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen,

English Language and Literature Academic Group, National Institute ofEducation, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore637616 ([email protected]).

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reading the world through words: cultural themes in heritage chinese language textbooks

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