Dr Yangguang Chen

Dr Yangguang Chen, Professor of Education from China, joined the department in 2006 after 20 years of experience in academia at China’s universities. She did her bachelor degree in the English Language and Literature at Xiamen University 1978-1982, her master degree in Comparative Education at Hebei University 1984-86, and became a university academic at FNU 1982. She was a visiting scholar at University of Philadelphia 1988-89; she was awarded the British Academy K.C.W Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1996 undertaking a post-doctoral research at University of Newcastle upon Tyne; she was a visiting professor at Goldsmiths, University of London 1997-1998, sponsored by the Chinese National Scholar Award; she was documented in Who's Who in Social Sciences of China in 1999. Her research interest includes comparative education, curriculum studies, and citizenship education; her publications, which have appeared in both English and Chinese, including articles, monographs and books, are very well received in the educational community in China and abroad. She won the Overseas Research Scheme (ORS) Award and registered her PhD study in Educational Studies at Goldsmiths. Since then she has extended her research into the field of educational bilingualism and focused her research on educational policy particularly with reference to issues of social inclusion and ethnic minority achievement. Besides, she works on BA in Education, Culture and Society programme, MA in Education: Culture, Language and Identity, PGCE (Secondary) MFL programme and the MPhil/PhD programmes. She is a member of the Centre for Language, Culture and Learning at Goldsmiths.

Academic Qualifications

PhD Education, Goldsmiths, University of London (2004)
MA Education, Hebei University, China (1986)
BA Hons English and the literature, Xiamen University, China (1982)

Teaching

Currently, she leads BA (Hons) ECS Y3 course on Comparative Education and Study in China; PGCE (Secondary) MFL programme on The Chinese Literacy and Grammar. She also contributes to the teaching of other BA and MA course modules, e.g. Confucian Ideology, China’s policy for SENs, Language policies and cultural identities, Chinese language in the globalizing world, Chinese Diaspora - Cultural Inheritance and Impact on Children’s Learning Success, and Comparing approaches to foreign/second language teaching in China, UK and elsewhere.

Publications and research outputs

Book Section

Chen, Yang Guang. 2014. Becoming global citizens through bilingualism: Language policy and Chinese citizenship education in a globalising world. In: Kerry J. Kennedy; Gregory Fairbrother and Zhenzhou Zhao, eds. Citizenship Education in China: Preparing Citizens for the 'Chinese Century'. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 144-156. ISBN 9780415502726

Chen, Yang Guang and Barradas, O. 2008. How Portugese and Chinese community schools in London support educational achievement. In: Charmian Kenner and Anna Hickey Moody, eds. Multilingual Europe: Diversity and Learning. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. ISBN 978-1858564234

Chen, Yang Guang. 2007. Contributing to Success: Chinese parents and the community school. In: J. Conteh; P. Martin and L. Robertson L, eds. Multilingual Learning: Stories in Schools and Communities in Britain. Trentham Books, pp. 63-85. ISBN 1858563984

Article

Chen, Yang Guang. 2009. Language Support for Emergent Bilinguals in English Mainstream Schools: An Observational Study. Language Culture and Curriculum, 22(1), pp. 57-70. ISSN 0790-8318

Chen, Yang Guang. 2007. Equality and Inequality of Opportunity in Education: Chinese Emergent Bilingual Children in the Mainstream Classroom. Language Culture and Curriculum, 20(1), pp. 36-51. ISSN 07908318

Chen, Yang Guang and Reid, I.. 2002. Citizenship Education in Chinese Schools: retrospect and prospect. Research in Education, 67, pp. 58-69. ISSN 1743727X

Research Interests

Research grants

In 2010, she conducted a Goldsmiths’ funded research project on ‘Developing a bilingual pedagogy in new language learning and teaching’ and findings have been presented at several international conferences since. In 2014, she won a British Academy Research Grant for the research entitled ‘Foreign Languages as Cultural Capital: empowering UK students from disadvantaged backgrounds through the learning of Chinese’. The findings from these two funded researches have been presented at several international conferences since.