Abstract
The United States is inhabited by diverse groups of people, including immigrants from around the world. Recent census data have shown that there are a growing number of Chinese immigrants in the United States, especially California, resulting in a growing number of Chinese preschoolers in the US. Therefore, American teachers are facing greater cultural diversity in the classroom. Since Chinese and American cultures emphasize different childrearing beliefs and practices, the challenges American preschool teachers face go beyond language differences. Therefore, there is a need to develop an informational handbook for American preschool teachers to aid their understanding of Chinese immigrant families with children in their care. Information for this project was gathered through a review of the literature from library online databases of Sacramento State University, a review of the book “Bridging Cultures between Home and School” by Trumbull et al. (2001), and different websites found using search engines such as Yahoo and Google. The author also informally spoke to her former co-workers at a local preschool and her Chinese immigrant friends in order to understand more about misunderstandings and conflicts between American preschool teachers and Chinese immigrant parents. American preschool teachers working in a culturally diverse classroom can better help Chinese immigrant students to adjust to new learning environment by becoming more culturally sensitive. Teachers working effectively with Chinese immigrant families, especially developing constructive communication with Chinese parents, can also help to enhance newcomer Chinese children’s learning and development. The handbook developed for this project contained information on Chinese traditional childrearing beliefs and practices and classroom strategies that may help American preschool teachers working with Chinese families become more prepared and understanding when there are conflicts and disagreements with Chinese immigrant parents. Since the United States is made up of a diverse group of people from different cultures with different childrearing beliefs and practices, future handbooks focusing on different cultural groups are needed in order to help American preschool teachers to serve families of different cultures.