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The Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Program (RLP) is a collaborative initiative between the University of Windsor (UW), Canada, Southwest University (SWU), China, in partnership with Greater Essex County District School Board and Chinese schools associated with SWU. The program, founded in 2010 through SWU Teacher Education fund and UW Strategic Priority Fund with in-kind contributions from Greater Essex County District School Board, is designed to provide an exceptional experience with international engagement, to broaden teacher candidates’ horizons for a society of increasing diversity, to foster international collaboration among faculty members who are interested in cross-cultural studies and multicultural education, and to enhance the international reputation of the University of Windsor (Xu, 2011a). The RLP is one of the foundational programs which provide research contexts and settings for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant Project entitled “Reciprocal Learning in Teacher Education and School Education between Canada and China” (Xu & Connelly, 2013-2020).

The population of international students has increased significantly at the University of Windsor in recent years, and the university takes a variety of actions to address several key issues of interest to international students, including academic integrity, English language development, and writing support. This chapter reports findings from a multi-year collaborative project that was designed to enhance international students' library and academic literacy, with a focus on the understanding of plagiarism and measures to prevent it. A number of workshops that involved students at different levels were delivered to students from the English language improvement, undergraduate, and graduate programs. Research data collected from these workshops indicate that students benefited from the workshops, although at different degrees because of various factors, such as academic discipline, English language proficiency, previous educational experience. Further research can be conducted to explore ways to optimize such programs to meet the needs of students, particularly international students.

The number of children with autism is increasing worldwide. These children like all other children should be provided with equal chances for learning and education. Thus, English language education is not an exception as the need to learn it in today’s world is inevitable. The present study sought to investigate the effect of employing Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) on English as a foreign language vocabulary learning relying on its effectiveness in first language communication. As a single-subject study an experimental A-B design was employed through repeated measurement. The participants were two high-functioning children with autism aged 9 and 12 at a school for students with special needs. The treatment phase included 15 sessions. An analysis of visual inspection and graphic representation revealed performance improvement in both cases after the intervention. Moreover, some problems while educating the two participants for English vocabulary including lack of cooperation in phase 2, lack of attention and cooperation in mid-intervention, sense problems such as proprioceptive and vestibular are reported through qualitative analysis of the reports made of weekly sessions.

RNA interference (RNAi) has emerged as an efficient tool to control insect pests. When lethal double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) were ingested by the insects, strong gene silencing and mortality can be induced. To exert their function, dsRNA molecules must pass through insect’s gut and enter epithelial cells and/or the hemolymph. Gut bacteria are known to inhabit on the epithelial surface to confer host new capabilities to counter both biotic and abiotic stress. Whether there is a crosstalk between gut bacteria and dsRNAs and the effects of the microbiome on RNAi efficiency remains unknown. Here, using a leaf beetle-gut microbiota system, we investigated whether and how gut bacteria interact with dsRNA molecules and its effects on host insects. We firstly showed that the leaf beetle Plagiodera versicolora (Coleoptera) is highly susceptible to RNAi. Then, we found that ingestion of dsRNAs by non-axenic P. versicolora larvae results in (i) significantly accelerated mortality compared to axenic larvae, and (ii) over-growth and dysbiosis of the gut microbiota. The latter is mainly caused by the bacterial utilization of the dsRNA degraded products initiated by the host insect. Furthermore, we found that Pseudomonas putida, a gut bacterium of P. versicolora, was a main commensal-to-pathogen strain that accelerated the death of P. versicolora larvae. Taken together, our findings reveal a synergistic role of gut microbiota to dsRNA-induced mortality of pest insects, which provides new insights in the ecological functions of insect gut bacteria, and also contributes to a better understanding of the RNAi mechanisms in insects.

Amid far-reaching global social and economic changes, increasing diversity and growing interdependency, teachers play important roles in creating successful futures for both individuals and society. Within the dialectic of global and local, and with increasing connectivity amongst teachers, opportunities for transformational learning fostering empathy, global citizenship, and social justice are unprecedented. Thus, teacher education reform should facilitate transcultural collaboration, collegiality and critical perspectives to counter Western hegemony of knowledge, Eurocentric education, neo-colonialism, and neoliberal/conservative agendas. This paper investigates these issues and teachers' personal practical and professional knowledge through narratives of West-to-East and East-to-West transcultural journeys as teacher educators.

Jia Ming, a boy from Shanghai, China, arrived at the Newcomer Support Class of Bay Street Community School in his first year and moved on to an advanced English program for newcomer students in his second year in Canada. The generational narratives of Jia Ming’s family tell the differences between Chinese schools and Canadian schools in terms of parental involvement, the teacher’s role, homework, notions of learning and playing, and educational approaches and expectations. The differences, frustrating as some may seem to be, reveal aspects and necessities of mutual appreciation and reciprocal learning between Chinese parents and Canadian teachers, and between Chinese schools and Canadian schools.

In this final chapter, Schwab’s commonplaces are used to sketch and discuss the unseen lives immigrant children live in different curriculum situations – lives that are either unseen by the teacher or unseen by the parent – lives lived in-between shifting visible and invisible boundaries on landscapes in transition when continuity and interaction are missing from their cross-cultural lived experience. These boundaries prevent rich educational resources from being utilized to the best advantage of newcomer families. One of the purposes of this work is to bring these unseen lives to light for cross-cultural and multicultural curriculum and teacher development in terms of educational policy, practice and research, to build multidimensional bridges on landscapes in transition across cultures for reciprocal learning.

Chapter 1 introduces the background, context, key questions, methodology, and participants of the study. The choice of an open-ended fluid inquiry methodology is explained along with the reason why only boys were selected as key participants. Canadian immigration trends are discussed to provide the background and context for the narrative inquiry into Chinese immigrant families’ cross-cultural school experience in Canada. The chapter explains why Chinese people’s search for home in Canada is the focal point of the narrative inquiry. It reveals that the core purpose of the book is to explore the cross-cultural issues in schooling between the East and the West to find ways to bridge cultural and educational values. Reciprocal learning between Chinese newcomer culture and Canadian culture is the goal.

Zhi Gao, a newcomer boy from Guangdong, China, was the last potential participant to be considered for the study due to his behavior difficulties and thus the concern that he might be unwilling to participate. Zhi Gao’s behavior issues reflected the language barriers and cultural dissonance experienced by the boy in his transition between two countries and two educational systems as well as between childhood and adolescence. The frustration and helplessness experienced by the parents and the boy himself reveal the needs for identifying the visible and invisible boundaries in a school system with well-intended programs and rich resources, and a need for Parents’ Aid for despairing parents like Zhi Gao’s mom, whose dreams of a better life and education for their children in a new country are shattered.

We explore immigrant students' experience of schooling focusing on Yang Yang and his family. We present insights into immigrant Chinese educational experience in Canada and bring forward a narrative‐inquiry framework for the study of student experience. We find that—contrary to some of the expectations of Chinese immigrants—family relations, student learning, and school policies are complicated, with families finding it difficult to translate Chinese educational values in the Canadian context and their children facing serious learning and social difficulties.

In response to the economic, social and political transformation of China in the twenty-first century, China’s education has undergone radical reform of all levels of its educational system, mostly in Western terms. In the meantime, the Western world has been observing the rise of China mostly in economic or political terms, and China’s rise is often perceived as a potential threat to the West in the East-and-West dichotomised thinking. What insights may be drawn from the social, cultural and educational values that China can offer to the world? What should China learn from the West for its educational reforms? In what way may we gain mutual understanding, respect and appreciation in the changing world landscape? A study of the increasing number of Chinese immigrant families in Canada may shed a different light on such East-and-West dichotomy and may help create bridges for reciprocal learning with mutual adaptation, respect and appreciation.