Conceptions of Teaching by Five Vietnamese American Preservice Teachers

This article argues that Vietnamese Americans face unique challenges in becoming U.S. educators. To understand the experiences of five preservice Vietnamese American teachers, it examines the similarities and within-group differences in perspectives on teaching and in adaptation strategies of their practicum activities at a California university. The study shows that these individuals operated frequently from their Vietnamese cultural frame of understanding, and therefore had difficulty with socializing into U.S. teaching. In particular, they perceived teaching as fundamentally a moral enterprise, and teachers as moral agents, able—by virtue of their role—to command authority in the classroom and reverential respect from their students and parents. These assumptions about teachers' roles were often incongruent with those inherent in the teaching and learning contexts in which they worked.