International Association of Educators   |  ISSN: 1308-951X

Original article | International Journal of Research in Teacher Education 2020, Vol. 11(4) 1-15

The Intersection of Transnationality and Scholarship: Self-Positioning and Teaching, Research, and Service Practices of Three Transnational Teacher-Scholars

Bita Bookman

pp. 1 - 15   |  Manu. Number: ijrte.2020.007

Published online: December 29, 2020  |   Number of Views: 134  |  Number of Download: 602


Abstract

There is an increasing number of transnational faculty who work outside their home countries, yet little is known about their transnational social fields and how their transnationality may intersect with their scholarship practices. This interdisciplinary qualitative study explores the self-positioning and teaching, research, and service approaches of three foreign-born, transnational teacher-scholars in the United States. Data was collected through a written questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. In addition to questions about their cross-border ties and teaching, research, and service scholarships, the participants were asked to narrate several critical incidents from their transnational lived experiences and to describe a significant personal artifact they owned. Positioning theory and the concept of non-place migrant identity were used to identify participants’ self-positioning in relation to place and their teaching, research, and service scholarship practices. Grounded in a social constructionist paradigm, the data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The study provides further empirical support that transnationality and scholarship shape one another as transnational teacher-scholars use their transnational past and present as an asset and a form of capital in their teaching, research, and service scholarships. Findings also reveal that transnational teacher-scholars position themselves at different points on the continuum of non-place identity and belonging. The study concludes with recommendations for encouraging transnational student-teachers and faculty to realize and capitalize on the strengths they bring to the academy.

Keywords: Transnational faculty, teacher-scholars, teacher identity, non-place identity, positioning theory


How to Cite this Article?

APA 6th edition
Bookman, B. (2020). The Intersection of Transnationality and Scholarship: Self-Positioning and Teaching, Research, and Service Practices of Three Transnational Teacher-Scholars . International Journal of Research in Teacher Education, 11(4), 1-15.

Harvard
Bookman, B. (2020). The Intersection of Transnationality and Scholarship: Self-Positioning and Teaching, Research, and Service Practices of Three Transnational Teacher-Scholars . International Journal of Research in Teacher Education, 11(4), pp. 1-15.

Chicago 16th edition
Bookman, Bita (2020). "The Intersection of Transnationality and Scholarship: Self-Positioning and Teaching, Research, and Service Practices of Three Transnational Teacher-Scholars ". International Journal of Research in Teacher Education 11 (4):1-15.

References

    Alberts, H. C. (2008). The challenges and opportunities of foreign-born instructors in the

    classroom. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 32(2), 189–203.

    doi:10.1080/03098260701731306

    Angouri, J. (2012). “I’m a Greek Kiwi”: Constructing Greekness in discourse. Journal of

    Language, Identity & Education, 11(2), 96–108. doi:10.1080/15348458.2012.667303

    Appadurai, A. (1991). Global ethnoscapes: Notes and queries for a transnational anthropology.

    In R. Fix (Ed.), Recapturing anthropology (pp. 191-210). Santa Fe, NM: School of

    American Research Press.

    Aug., M. (1995). Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London, UK:

    Verso.

    Basch, L., Glick Schiller, N., & Blanc, C. S. (1994). Nations unbound: Transnational projects,

    postcolonial predicaments, and deterritorialized nation states. New York, NY: Gordon

    and Breach.

    Bhabha, H. K. (2004). The location of culture. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

    Bloemraad, I. (2015). Theorizing and analyzing citizenship in multicultural societies. The Social

    Quarterly, 56, 591–606. doi:10.1111/tsq.12095

    Boccagni, P. (2012). Rethinking transnational studies: Transnational ties and the transnationalism

    of everyday life. European Journal of Social Theory, 15(1), 117–132.

    doi:10.1177/1368431011423600

    Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Special Report,

    Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. New York, NY: Jossey-Bass

    Canagarajah, S. (2018). Transnationalism and translingualism: How they are connected. In

    Transnational writing education (pp.57-76). London, UK: Routledge.

    Clarke, M. (2009). The ethico-politics of teacher identity. Educational Philosophy and Theory,

    41(2), 185–200. doi:10.1111/j.1469-5812.2008.00420.x

    Collins, J. M. (2008). Coming to America: Challenges for faculty coming to United States’

    universities. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 32(2), 179–188.

    doi:10.1080/03098260701731215

    Craith, N. M. (2012). Narratives of place, belonging and language: An intercultural perspective.

    New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230355514.

    Davies, B., & Harr., R. (1999). Positioning and personhood. In R. Harr. & L. Van Langenhove

    (Eds.), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action (pp. 32–52). Oxford,

    England: Blackwell.

    Economic news release. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2020, May 15). Retrieved from

    https://www.bls.gov/news.release/forbrn.t04.htm

    Foote, K. E., Li, W., Monk, J., & Theobald, R. (2008). Foreign-born scholars in US universities:

    Issues, concerns, and strategies. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 32(2), 167–

    178. doi:10.1080/03098260701731322

    Gahungu, A. (2011). Integration of foreign-born faculty in academia: Foreignness as an asset. The

    International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation, 6(1), 1–22.

    http://cnx.org/content/m36649/1.2

    Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L., & Blanc Szanton, C. (1992). Transnationalism: A new analytic

    framework for understanding migration. Annals New York Academy of Sciences, 645,

    1–24. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1992.tb33484.x

    Guarnizo, L. E., Portes, A., & Haller, W. (2003). Assimilation and transnational political action

    among contemporary migrants. American Journal of Sociology, 108(6), 1211–48.

    doi:10.1086/375195

    Hanauer, D. I. (2008). Non-place identity: Britain’s response to migration in the age of

    supermodernity. In D. Gerard, R. Wodak, & P. Jones (Eds.), Identity, belonging and

    migration (pp. 198–218). Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press.

    doi:10.5949/liverpool/9781846311185.003.0011

    Harr., R., & Van Langenhove, L. (1999). The dynamics of social episodes. In R. Harr. & L. Van

    Langenhove (Eds.), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action (pp. 1–13).

    Oxford, England: Blackwell.

    Hocker, J. L. (2010). It’s all come down to me: Meaning making with family artifacts. Qualitative

    Inquiry, 16(10), 863–870. doi:10.1177/1077800410383127

    Hutchings, P. (2000). Opening lines: Approaches to the scholarship of teaching and learning.

    Menlo Park, CA: Carnegie.

    Itzigsohn, J., & Giorguli Saucedo, S. (2002). Immigrant incorporation and sociocultural

    transnationalism. The International Migration Review, 36(3), 766–798.

    doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2002.tb00104.x

    Kim, T. (2010). Transnational academic mobility, knowledge, and identity capital. Discourse:

    Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 31(5), 577–591.

    Lee, H. (2011). Rethinking transnationalism through the second generation. The Australian

    Journal of Anthropology, 22(3), 295–313. doi:10.1111/j.1757-6547.2011.00150.x

    Levitt, P. (2001). Transnational migration: Taking stock and future directions. Global Networks,

    1(3), 195–216. doi:10.1111/1471-0374.00013

    Levitt, P., & Glick Schiller, N. (2004). Conceptualizing simultaneity: A transnational social field

    perspective on society. International Migration Review, 38(3), 1002–1039.

    doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00227.x

    Levitt, P., & Jaworsky, B. N. (2007). Transnational migration studies: Past developments and

    future trends. Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 129–156.

    doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131816

    Mamiseishvili, K. (2013). Contributions of foreign-born faculty to doctoral education and

    research. New Directions for Higher Education, 163, 89–98. doi:10.1002/he.20068

    Marquis, E., Healey, M., & Vine, M. (2014). Building capacity for the scholarship of teaching

    and learning (SoTL) using international collaborative writing groups. International

    Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(1), 1–34. doi:10.2042 Kern

    9/ijsotl.2014.080112

    Mckinley, J. (2019), Evolving the TESOL teaching–research nexus. TESOL Quarterly.

    doi:10.1002/tesq.509

    Menard-Warwick, J. (2008). The cultural and intercultural identities of transnational English

    teachers: Two case studies from the Americas. TESOL Quarterly, 42(4), 617–640.

    doi:10.2307/40264491

    Ong, A. (1999). Flexible citizenship: The cultural logic of transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke

    University Press.

    Park, G. (2018). Narratives of East Asian women teachers of English: Where privilege meets

    marginalization. Cambridge, UK: Multilingual Writers.

    Park, G., Rinke, C., & Mawhinney, L. (2016). Exploring the interplay of cultural capital, habitus,

    and field in the life histories of two West African teacher candidates. Teacher

    Development, 20(5), 648–666. doi10.1080/13664530.2016.1202312

    Petr.n, M. A. (2009). Transnational teachers of English in Mexico. The High School Journal,

    92(4), 115–128. doi:10.1353/hsj.0.0028

    Petr.n, M. A., & Greybeck, B. (2014). Borderlands epistemologies and the transnational

    experience. Gist Education and Learning Research Journal, 8, 137–155.

    doi:10.26817/16925777.118

    Portes, A., Guarnizo, L. E., & Landolt, P. (1999). The study of transnationalism: Pitfalls and

    promise of an emergent research field. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2), 217–237.

    doi:10.1080/014198799329468

    Richardson, L. (1997). Fields of play: Constructing an academic life. New Brunswick, NJ:

    Rutgers University Press.

    Skachkova, P. (2007). Academic careers of immigrant women professors in the U.S. Higher

    Education, 53, 697–738. doi:10.1007/s10734-005-1976-4

    Sperling, J. (2014). Conceptualising “inter-destination transnationalism”: The presence and

    implication of coethnic ties between destination societies. Journal of Ethnic and

    Migration Studies, 40(7), 1097–1115. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2013.830887

    Theobald, R. (2013). International faculty: A source of diversity. In H.C. Alberts & H. D. Hazen

    (Eds.), International students and scholars in the United States: Coming from abroad (pp.

    111–130). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137024473_6

    Tripp, D. (2012). Critical incidents in teaching: Developing professional judgement (Classic ed.).

    London, UK: Routledge.

    Trotz, D. A. (2006). Rethinking Caribbean transnational connections: Conceptual itineraries.

    Global Networks, 6(1), 41–59. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0374.2006.00132.x

    Van Langenhove, L., & Harr., R. (1999). Introducing positioning theory. In R. Harr. & L. Van

    Langenhove (Eds.), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action (pp. 14–31).

    Oxford, England: Blackwell.

    Varghese, M., Motha, S., Park, G., Reeves, J., & Trent, J. (2016). In this issue. TESOL Quarterly,

    50(3), 545–571. doi:10.1002/tesq.333

    Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(6), 1024–

    1054. doi:10.1080/01419870701599465

    Voigt-Graf, C. (2004). Towards a geography of transnational spaces: Indian transnational

    communities in Australia. Global Networks, 4(1), 25–49. doi:10.1111/j.1471-

    0374.2004.00079.x

    Waldinger, R. (2008). Between “here” and “there”: Immigrant cross-border activities and

    loyalties. International Migration Review, 42(1), 3–29. doi:10.1111/j.1747-

    7379.2007.00112.x

    Witt, P. L., Harris, K., Yarhouse, K., Sawyer, C. R., & Behnke, R. R. (2007). Reconceptualizing

    the teacher-scholar model in university-level communication education. Human

    Communication, 10(4), 497–506.

    Yazan, B. (2018). A conceptual framework to understand language teacher identities. Journal of

    Second Language Teacher Education, 1(1), 21–48.