Chapter 2: The Role of Chinese Culture and Western Influences in Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs about the Use of Digital Technologies in Early Childhood Education

This chapter discusses the technologies Chinese preservice teachers refer to when they reflect upon technology integration use in early childhood education and explores how Chinese educational traditions and Western theories influence their beliefs about technology integration. Since the 1980s, western educational philosophies and theories such as child-centered education have been promoted in mainland China as top–down curriculum reforms. Integrating technology into educational practices is viewed by many educational policymakers as an effective way to innovate curriculum and transform educational practices (Ministry of Education, 2012; Nordkvelle & Olson, 2005). Early childhood preservice teachers, in turn, are often portrayed as “digital native teachers” who can put the pedagogical affordances of digital technologies in action by virtue (Szeto et al., 2016). Our analysis of qualitative interviews with eight purposefully selected preservice teachers, however, challenges these presumptions. Instead, we identified that the preservice teachers’ beliefs were strongly shaped by deeply rooted Chinese educational traditions, with the influences from Western pedagogies being present only on a superficial level. Despite framing technology integration with child-centered discourses, the participants conceptualized technologies as screen-based devices such as interactive whiteboards to be used for delivering teacher-centered instructions to children. Additionally, they viewed themselves as educational authorities whose responsibility is to correct parental practices on children’s technology use at home. This is consistent with the traditional Chinese educational ideology that the child is seen to belong primarily to the state. Implications for teacher education, educational policies, and future research are discussed.