International Teachers’ Lived Experiences

This book explores the emerging and under-researched phenomenon of internationalised schooling in China. It focuses on a group of “accidental” teachers who fell into teaching through happenstance or necessity, a group of teachers increasingly seeking refuge in Chinese Internationalised Schools. Chinese Internationalised Schools cater to an affluent middle class in China, offering some form of international curriculum which is taught by host country Chinese nationals and expatriate teachers. Chapters focus on three dimensions of teachers’ lived experiences of working in these schools: the intercultural, which explores teachers’ negotiations of intercultural teacher identities; the precarious, which highlights the struggles they might face at work; and the resilient, which illustrates how teachers survive—and even thrive—in the position. The author identifies a complex interplay between surviving and thriving, giving rise to the concept of “sur-thrival.”

“This book provides a timely contribution to unpacking the precarious yet resilient group of teachers within an international context. The insightful perspectives … are of immense value to researching and improving the quality of teachers’ lives in a broader sense. … the author examines a wide array of both well-known and lesser-known phenomena in teacher-becoming. … this book has served as a comparative reference for my (auto)ethnographic research on the phenomenon of teacher-becoming for immigrant teachers in Australasia.” (Dave Yan, Educational Review, September 23, 2022)  “This book is a timely and valuable contribution to research on Chinese education mobilities, especially on international teacher mobility in China. Poole provides vivid phenomenological details about the precarious yet resilient, the surviving while also thriving lived experiences of ‘accidental’ international schoolteachers in China’s internationalised schools. Poole’s theorisation of the ‘sur-thrival’ of these international schoolteachers is innovative and carries tremendous analytical promise for the field. This book would be of great interest to scholars and students of teacher education, international and comparative education, China studies and migration studies. I highly recommend this book.”
—Cora Lingling Xu, Assistant Professor in Education, Durham University, UK

“This fascinating book shines a torch on hidden treasures and profoundly enriches our understanding of teacher identity. Through carefully elicited biographies and painstaking analysis of teachers on theperiphery, Adam Poole vividly captures the messiness, precariousness and resilience embedded in the lived experiences of westerners in international schools in China.”
—Bob Adamson, Visiting Professor, University of Nottingham Ningbo China

“This book is truly original. It delves deep into an under-researched and under-theorised world. The lived experiences of those who ‘accidentally’ end up teaching in the emerging arena of non-traditional international schools in mainland China offer a fascinating insight into coping within a complex field of insecurity and precarity. The ‘Chinese Internationalised School’ is a growing beast and hearing the voices of some who work in them is a fascinating treat. What we discover is that they not only survive but seemingly thrive, building up reserves of experience and resilience.”
—Tristan Bunnell, Lecturer in International Education, University of Bath, UK

“This is a must-read book for those interested inthe lived experience of teachers in China’s rapidly changing international school landscape.”
—Ewan Wright, Assistant Professor, Department of Education Policy and Leadership, The Education University of Hong Kong

Adam Poole is an independent researcher in Beijing, China. His research interests include international schooling, teachers’ experiences in international schools, and internationalised schooling in China.