Going Home

The study explored the returning experience of six Chinese art education practitioners after they received their graduate degrees in the United States and moved back to China. It was grounded on the assumption that when art education returnees try to translate what they learned into the new system of art education in another country, their efforts will be shaped by the different cultural context, and conflicts will emerge with multiple and interrelated dimensions. The dissertation employed a qualitative cross-case approach. Six returned art education practitioners were selected and interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol in 2019. I mainly worked as a non-participant researcher, obtaining information from the conversations with the participants. In addition, I collected blog entries, photos, and online articles related to what and how an interviewee responded to a question. The findings of the research suggested that returnees move along diverse trajectories of professional development, and their professional ideas all contradict local traditions to some extent. Collectively, they experienced multiple challenges concerning professional, administrative, and interpersonal, as well as some minor challenges in their returning process. In coping with the challenges, they made two-way changes: they changed their own expectations and behaviors, while also changing art education in China in terms of teaching methods, space, and people involved. This study aimed to provide educational implications for future art education returnees, international art programs, and China as the home country. It also provides implications for the developing art education programs in China. New thoughts sparked by the process of collecting data and writing the dissertation are also presented as suggestions for future studies.