DR. SHIBAO GUO AND DR. YAN GUO
University of Calgary
Revisiting multicultural education in the age of transnational migration: Perspectives of immigrant parents
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Canada is often held up internationally as a successful model of multiculturalism that has gained international recognition as being pioneering and effectual. In recent years there has been a growing assault on and subsequent retreat from multiculturalism in many countries in the world, raising important questions about the future of multiculturalism in Canada. Debates, critiques, and challenges to Canadian multiculturalism by academics and politicians continue to emerge and percolate in the last decade or so in Canada. To mark the 50th anniversary of Canada’s official multiculturalism, this talk contextualizes the debate over multiculturalism by focusing on multicultural education policy and practice in the age of transnational migration. In particular, we focus on the perspectives of immigrant parents who found that the current school curriculum privileges Eurocentric and monolingual perspectives which did not reflect the reality of a post-national Canada that approaches diversity differently.
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Shibao Guo is Professor in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. He specializes in citizenship and immigration, Chinese immigrants in Canada, ethnic and race relations, and comparative and international education. He has numerous publications including books, journal articles, and book chapters. His latest books include: Decolonising lifelong learning in the context of transnational migration (Routledge, 2020). Immigration, racial and ethnic studies in 150 years of Canada: Retrospects and prospects (Brill|Sense, 2018). He is former president of Canadian Ethnic Studies Association. Currently he serves as co-editor of Canadian Ethnic Studies.
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Dr. Yan Guo is Professor in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. Her research interests include critical pedagogy of language learning, Teaching English as an Additional Language, immigrant parent engagement, immigration, diversity in teacher education, transnational identities and translanguaging of immigrant and refugee children, language policy, and international education. Her publications include Home-school relations: International perspectives (2018), Spotlight on China: Changes in education under China’s market economy (2016), and Spotlight on China: Chinese education in the globalized world (2016), and 61 journal articles and book chapters. She is currently co-editing two new book series, Transnational Migration and Education and Spotlight on China.