Silenced Narratives: Secondary Social Studies Teachers’ Efforts to Integrate Chinese Canadian History and Experiences in the Classroom

The purpose of this research study was to explore how Ontario Grade 10 Social Studies teachers are reportedly teaching about the Chinese Canadian experience. To inform this study, an extensive literature review was conducted on teacher perceptions of multicultural education, how effective teachers are at integrating multicultural curriculum content according to James Banks’ four-part framework, how Social Studies textbooks depict minorities, and the importance of these findings to the curricular integration and representation of Chinese Canadians. Data was collected from three semi-structured qualitative interviews with high school teachers currently teaching in the Greater Toronto Area who incorporate Chinese Canadian history and experience extensively in their classrooms. Three themes emerged from the interview data: (1) How teachers develop their knowledge of Chinese Canadian history and how external and internal factors determine their level of integration; (2) Educators are capable of integrating Chinese Canadian history and experience into the curriculum in a way that creates a learning environment that is transformative; and (3) Teachers look for or create resources in order to compensate for the lack of readily available and reliable resources on Chinese Canadians. Overall, these educators integrate Chinese Canadian history and experience in a way that can be deemed Transformative according to Banks’ Integration of Multicultural Content scale. Further research needs to be conducted to examine those lessons in practice, how Chinese Canadians are addressed in recent government certified texts, and how other Canadian provinces integrate the history and experience of Chinese Canadians