East Asian Canadian Graduated Students, Silent but Engaged: A Dialectical Exploration of Classroom Learner Speech in Competing Educational Models

This research is offered to those interested in the phenomenon of the relatively silent Confucian learner and particularly in his transition from his Confucian influenced educational origins to the Freirean-influenced, more learner speech orientated environment of Canadian graduate schools. Starting with the Analects of Confucius and continuing through the intervening period to present modern research, various possible factors contributing to the Confucian relatively learner-silent model were examined. The research phenomenologically examined the lived experiences of 18 Confucian background graduate students regarding learner speech in Canadian graduate schools. Viewing the participants as situated at the intersection of two different educational models regarding learner speech, the research created ideal types of their earlier Confucian educational model as well as of their Canadian graduate model. Thereafter, their learner speech perceptions were examined using the framework of Hegelâ s dialectical pattern. The research suggests that the responses of the participants indicate movement toward a new, synthesis model in terms of attitudinal movement toward the ideal type of Freirean-influenced, graduate Canadian education regarding (1) increased confidence that the Canadian model can be successfully mastered largely through learner activities that substitute for learner speech, (2) by development of appreciation for independent critical thought, and (3) by preference for the greater equality found in teacher-learner relations of the Canadian model as well as 4) actual participation in the Canadian model learner speech practices. The research concluded that a synthesis of the Confucian and Canadian educational models may produce future critical thinking, talkative Confucian classrooms led by increasingly friendly, informal teachers but that the focus of its critical thinking and learner speech may be directed more toward the socially harmonious external reference point of the Confucian Dao than toward Freirean focused speaking of individual learner realities as the basis upon which to move toward revolutionary restructuring of social class oppression in favor of greater social justice.Ph.D