• DOI:10.7939/R3891256S
• Corpus ID: 140917634

Finding Hope in the Darkness: Stories of Two Chinese Newcomers Enrolled in a Canadian High School

@inproceedings{Li2012FindingHI,
  title={Finding Hope in the Darkness: Stories of Two Chinese Newcomers Enrolled in a Canadian High School},
  author={Yi Li and Denise J. Larsen},
  year={2012}
}

• Yi Li, Denise J. Larsen
• Published 11 July 2012
• Education

Hope has been described as the ability to envision a future in which one wishes to participate. A burgeoning body of research consistently points to the vital role hope plays in learning and successful change. Employing narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000), in this paper, we explore two Chinese newcomer students’ stories of hope as they face the many challenges of undertaking a Canadian education. Findings indicate the value of communicating teachers’ belief in students, making hope more visible by inviting students to tell their stories of hope, and understanding hope as a process that evolves as students’ lives unfold. Resume L’espoir a ete decrit comme etant la capacite d’imaginer un futur dans lequel il est possible de participer. Il existe un secteur de recherche en pleine croissance qui insiste sur le role vital que joue l’espoir, aussi bien dans l’apprentissage que dans les changements personnels positifs. Dans cet article, nous cherchons a explorer, au travers du recit (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000), l’histoire de deux nouveaux arrivants chinois et l’espoir qu’ils developpent tout en affrontant les defis de leur education canadienne. Les resultats montrent qu’il est important que les professeurs communiquent la confiance qu’ils ont envers leurs eleves, qu’il doivent rendre l’espoir visible en les invitant a raconter leurs histoires et qu’il est tout aussi important de comprendre que l’espoir se developpe au fil de la vie. Introduction Hoping for a better education and future, thousands of Chinese youth leave home to study overseas. Children as young as fourteen years old arrive in Canada alone. Billeted with Canadian home-stay families, this is often the first time these Chinese youth have ever lived away from home. The hopes that energized their journeys to Canada rarely match the realities encountered as these students struggle to adjust to Canadian culture, families, education, and living and studying in English. Psycho-educational research identifies hope as a key motivational and learning factor (Cheavens, Michael, & Snyder, 2005), enhancing learning and adjustment. While no research has examined the experience of hope for Chinese newcomer high school students to Canada, the importance of agency, motivation, and hope in the face of incredible adjustments is clear (Hubble, Duncan, & Miller, 1999). This narrative inquiry (Clandinin &