Intercultural communication in the context of a Canada−China Sister School partnership: The experience of one New Basic Education school

Abstract

This paper presents the case of one Sister School in the Canada–China Reciprocal Learning Project based on a belief that practice has significant value for the development of teachers’ intercultural awareness and schools’ intercultural communication experience. This paper focuses on one Shanghai school’s reciprocal learning experience, highlighting the content of intercultural communication, the areas of collaboration, the characteristics of collaboration, and the attitudes towards collaboration in the intercultural context. Against the backdrop of New Basic Education reform in China, I try to depict how a Sister School partnership guided by the principle of reciprocal learning motivates Chinese and Canadian teachers to work together across cultural differences in order to learn and develop in terms of theory and practice. I also discuss difficulties and challenges that have occurred in the process of intercultural communication. In the process, reciprocal learning is re-conceptualized and relived as part of our research endeavor.