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Where is home : the lived experiences of three Chinese international students in Canada
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- Author / Creator
- Li, Yi
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Using Clandinin and Connelly's (2000) approach to narrative inquiry, this dissertation explores the experiences and meanings of home and homelessness among international students after they have studied and lived in Canada for several years. The three research participants---Jasmine, Magnolia, and Mei---were born around 1980, finished their high school education in China, came to Canada and entered a high school university preparation program in Fall 1998, started their undergraduate programs at the University of Alberta in Fall 1999 and graduated with their Bachelor's Degrees in Spring 2003. The first set of field texts (data) for this study was collected during their fourth year of university; the final set in the following two years. During the collaborative research process, we shared our intense feelings about what it means to have a home, and what it means to feel/be homeless and how we are going to make a home in a new place in our future lives. Narrative accounts of three participants' experiences around home were constructed. Looking across the three narrative accounts, three resonating narrative threads were identified: home as place, home as relationship and home as life. The most important finding of this thesis is how each of the participants was awakened and began to think and question her taken-for-granted notion of home as a result of undergoing a dramatic transition from China to Canada. Though my study focused on Chinese students, it has significance for understanding home and homelessness in general.
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- Graduation date
- 2006
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.