Chunyan Zhang is an educator with many years of frontline teaching experience in the field of China study, second language teaching, early childhood and primary education. Her research interests include global knowledge flow, China as method, identity, self-care, curriculum design, global citizenship education, critical pedagogy for Chinese language education, and employing STS theories in educational research.
How is China imagined and presented in Chinese language education in Australia? For Dr Chunyan Zhang, this was the key problematic and question driving her research in this extremely well written, thorough, and scholarly book. As a multi-method text, especially pleasing for me is the fact that it’s grounded in narrative and autoethnographic inquiry. And as an antidote to much of the theory- and evidence-light examples of autoethnography in circulation in our current times, it’s extremely well researched. In summary, Zhang’s impressive work will, I’m sure, prove to make a valuable addition to intercultural scholarship. It constitutes a seminal text, promising to raise intercultural awareness and competence - not only in her native China and in Australia, but globally. Professor Alec Grant, PhD, Philosophical Autoethnographer and editor of Writing Philosophical Autoethnography (2014, Routledge), University of Bolton, UK