Conference Agenda

In educational sciences, the issue of teacher knowledge as a factor in understanding educational practices is central to several research programmes (Amade-Escot, 2000, 2014; Ben-Peretz, 2011; Verloop et al., 2001; Wickman, 2012): e.g., teacher thinking; pedagogical content knowledge (PCK); joint action in didactics (JAD); practical epistemology analysis (PEA). In connection with the action-oriented shift in the humanities and social sciences in the 20th century (Bronckart, 2005; Dolz & Leutenegger, 2015) and the emergence of comparative didactic (Mercier et al., 2002; Sensevy & Mercier, 2007), research on teacher knowledge in the French-speaking field of didactics has moved towards analysing teachers' practical epistemology within the framework of JAD. By considering that teacher epistemology (Brousseau, 1986) is practical “because it acts directly or indirectly in the everyday functioning of the class and because it is – in large measure – produced by and for practice”, Sensevy (2007, p. 37-38) introduces a fundamental break with the view of teacher epistemology as a set of conceptions about the subject taught (Amade-Escot, 2014, 2019). This conceptual shift reverses analyses aimed at identifying effective teachers and methods, or those conducted in terms of teachers' knowledge base or lack thereof, to focus no longer on what one needs to know in order to teach but on the actualisation of this knowledge in action (Amade-Escot, 2014). Previous research in mathematics and physical education shows that teachers' epistemology plays a role in their appropriation of curricular resources developed within the framework of didactic engineering (Amade-Escot, 2019; Artigue & Perrin-Glorian, 1991; Lenzen et al., 2022). Indeed, it may “condition the interpretation which teachers are going to make of the texts given to them, the choices they will make within their space of freedom, the decisions they will take in real time in order to face up to unforeseen phenomena” (Artigue & Perrin-Glorian, 1991, p. 15). Some of the recent research on this topic suggests that teachers' practical epistemology may be shaped by the cultural context in which teachers develop (Lenzen et al., 2024). There are cultural differences in the ways of thinking about school, knowledge, teaching and learning that are crystallised in different languages. Regarding the relationship between teaching, development and learning, for example, the Condorcian legacy of the French-speaking didactic tradition leads it to place instruction and knowledge at the heart of its project. Conversely, the Humboldtian legacy of the German-speaking tradition encourages it to prioritise personal development through the concept of Bildung (Schneuwly, 2021).

Based on this observation, we are launching a funded research project to study in Switzerland’s three main linguistic regions the dissemination of curriculum resources developed in a previous didactic engineering research programme in physical education. This narrative review is the first step in this project. It aims to gain a better understanding of the determinants of teachers’ practical epistemology, particularly how it can be shaped by cultural context. What are the determinants identified in literature? How to categorise them? How does the cultural context fit into these determinants?

As a publication that describes and discusses the state of the science of a specific topic from a theoretical and contextual point of view (in this case, the didactic perspective), a narrative review does usually not describe the methodological approach that would permit the reproduction of data. However, the quality of this type of review may be improved by borrowing from the systematic review methodologies that are aimed at reducing bias in the selection of articles for review and employing an effective bibliographic research strategy (Ferrari, 2015).

In recent years, an increasing number of research papers in international comparative didactics and classroom research have identified didactic patterns that vary according to national and cultural contexts (Hudson & Meyer, 2011; Hallitzky et al., 2016; Ligozat et al., 2023; Rakhkochkine, 2012; Stigler et al., 1999). However, due to the internationalization of teacher education, in particular student teachers’ practical placement abroad, and the increasing international migration of teachers, situations are increasingly arising in which teachers or student teachers from a specific national-culturally shaped didactic tradition encounter other national-cultural contexts—and thus differing didactic traditions—in their teaching (Goethe-Institut e.V. 2022, Moorhouse 2022, Parmigiani et al 2023, Zhu et al 2019). The intersection of these fields forms the theoretical framework for the empirical study, which explores the assumption that such encounters during a teaching practicum lead to the transformation of national-culturally shaped didactic traditions. The study investigates how these practices are adapted and to what extent new transnational didactic practices emerge.

The professionalization of Chinese teachers of Chinese as a foreign language in Europe is confronted with various complex educational challenges and problems. Traditional Chinese educational schemata have great impact on these teachers’ professional beliefs and their perceptions. There is a large amount of comparative studies on Chinese teachers’ professional development and their professional experiences in the intercultural context . Among these studies are a considerable number of research reports on the so-called heritage languages and on the teachers’ professional beliefs and their professionalization (Feuerverger, 1997; Curdt-Christiansen, 2006; Dervin, 2011) There is a large number of empirical studies in Germany focusing on the development of students’ competence, reading competence and graphemic competence (Guder, 2014), language competence and intercultural competence (Liang, 2005, Jandok, 2007).

Chinese language teachers abroad are confronted with instructional situations very different from what they have experienced in China. Most of them have been born in China and have been educated in Chinese tertiary institutions, whose professional identity and outlooks have been greatly influenced by the traditional Chinese educational framework. Their professional conceptions of good instruction may produce a variety of intercultural tensions in the new environment. It can be seen that dealing with professional constraints regarding teachers’ previous perceptions closely relates to their new practice and continual professional development. In my research, I therefore examine the transformation of their professional beliefs and their professional identity concerning their professional competence development.

Research questions

Chinese educational schemata and cultural values have been shown to affect Chinese teachers’ beliefs and their ability to adapt to overseas teaching environments. Concerning these teachers’ professional adaptations to the German situation and the transformations produced by that, my intercultural study aims to answer two principal research questions:

(1) On the basis of case studies in Germany, I ask how the six Chinese language teachers of my study adapt to their new educational situation in Germany and what kind of transformation their professional beliefs underwent.

(2) Secondly, I try to identify some professional developmental tasks for the Chinese language teachers and I ask how they cope with the professional tasks in their biographical experience.

The research frame for my empirical work is determined by research work of the following authors. (1) Bildung-centered Didaktik has been influencing learning and teaching in the past and at present. Studying the framework of Bildungsgang didactics (learner development and educational experience) allows providing a new theoretical framework on the interplay of students and teachers. I start with the concept of Bildungsgang that focuses on the process of Bildung. However, the German compound Bildungsgang means more than “educational process” (M. Meyer, 2007), and combines education and teaching with higher-level educational aims. (2) I structure the professional competence and identity development of the Chinese teachers following the American sociologist and educationist Robert J. Havighurst (1972) who has proposed to use the concept of developmental tasks in order to describe the development of children and young people between collective societal demands and individual needs. (3) And I depend on work of the German educational researcher Uwe Hericks (2006) who has adapted and interpreted the concept from the teachers’ perspective. Professional developmental tasks of teachers can be described using the following four basic categories: (1) Competence development, in particular in the subjects the teachers teach or want to teach; (2) transfer or mediation of the acquired knowledge in the instructional process, i.e. the teachers’ didactic competence; (3) willingness and capacity to acknowledge the “otherness” of the students, i.e. their right to be different; and (4) development of interaction competence with respect to students, colleagues, principals etc. in the school as an institution.