Living in two worlds: exploring US teachers’ perceptions of satellite children’s transnational experiences in China and the United States

Abstract

ABSTRACT Increasingly, immigrant families in North America are sending their newborns to the parents’ country of origin to be raised by relatives until the children reach school age. Then they are returned to their parents. This practice results from lack of childcare in the host countries, low wages among immigrant parents, and/or intergenerational childcare as a norm back home. Researchers and media have started to delve into the challenges faced by families and teachers in the adjustment process when children return. Informed by funds of knowledge research, this exploratory project begins by examining teachers’ perceptions and understandings of their Chinese ‘satellite children’. Interview data of elementary school teachers at an urban school in the northeastern United States not only reveal the adjustments these students encounter, but also point to the need for teachers to go beyond the superficial notion of culture.