Using database searches in ProQuest Sociology, Education Research Complete, ERIC, and Google Scholar, this landscape literature review provides research synthesis and analysis on research designs, underlying assumptions and findings of 21 recent peer-reviewed scholarly articles focusing on Chinese international students’ experiences in American higher education institutes. Patterns observed across studies regarding colorblind racism are presented in the discussion. Towards the end, this review closes with implications and directions for future research.

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Although being able to meet the TOEFL requirement for college admission, Chinese international students often encounter linguistic challenges during their initial college experiences. Understanding such challenges set the foundation for implementing Linguistically Responsive Instruction (LRI) in higher education. Although well studied in K‐12 settings, LRI remains under‐researched in higher education. Furthermore, often designed based upon teachers’ experiences, little research examines LRI through the lenses of students. In this exploratory qualitative study, we adopt a student‐centered approach to (re)imagine LRI in higher education based on the first‐semester experiences of 12 Chinese international freshmen. Drawing upon semi‐structured interviews, bilingual language logs, and WeChat observation, our study explores (1) What were Chinese international freshmen’s language and academic experiences during the first half of the semester? (2) What were their experiences throughout the rest of the semester and how do these experiences inform an LRI model to support multilingual students in higher education? The findings address participants’ challenges, coping strategies, and interactions within the university community and highlight the within‐group variabilities among Chinese international students. This study emphasizes the need to understand multilingual international students’ experiences beyond their TOEFL scores, which paves way for rethinking LRI in higher education through the lenses of students.

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As a result of increases in immigration, more students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are entering K–12 classrooms in the United States. Thus, the need to study the education of diverse learners is intensified. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews, observations, and informal conversations, this case study examined how a fourth-grade mainstream teacher at an urban public school put culturally and linguistically responsive instruction into practice. The data analysis was informed by a framework that focused on three levels: instructional, institutional, and societal. Directions for future research are discussed.

In this autoethnographic critical self-inquiry study, I draw upon my unique identity as once a Chinese international student and now an English professor at a private research university in the United States to investigate how I sought for my multilingual identity and empowered my international students while coping with linguicism and monolingual ideologies. Despite the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in student population, the faculty body in degree-granting postsecondary institutions remains dominated by White, native speakers of English (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Such a lack of diversity in the faculty body is present especially in the field of English, where monolingualism and nativeness is often the unspoken norm (Nigar & Kostogriz, 2019). This has exerted far-reaching impacts on all facets of English language teaching, posing substantial challenges to the professional development, instructional practices, and identity negotiation among nonnative English-speaking faculty of color. In this autoethnographic critical self-inquiry study, I reflected on my identity as once a Chinese international student and now an English professor to explore: How did my non-whiteness and non-native-English-speakerness affect my identity and self-positioning as a Chinese international student and an English professor? How did I cope with linguicism and monolingual language ideologies in American higher education and beyond? Autoethnography is a helpful approach to systematically explore one’s personal experiences from unique cultural perspectives (Ellis & Bochner, 2006). Critical self-inquiry is an essential research methodology to investigate tensions between belief systems and about identities (Larrivee, 2000; Marshall, 2001). Integrating the two methods together, autoethnographic critical self-inquiry allows exploration of lived experiences from an emic stance while acknowledging the dynamics of identity shifts and interaction. This autoethnographic critical self-inventory study focused on my journeys as once a Chinese international student (2012-2019) and later an English professor (2019-current) in American higher education. Following the critical self-inventory model (Allard & Gallant, 2012; Attard, 2014), data were collected to reflect both my on-going self-reflections (my teaching journals and diaries) and my conversing with others, including recordings and documentations of my interactions with colleagues and students. Data were analyzed following the coding procedures of applied thematic analysis (Guest et al., 2011) to explore important storylines in order to bring "readers into the scene" through showing and telling (Ellis, 1993, p. 711). Preliminary findings show that while my non-whiteness and nonnativeness have posed challenges to my initial self-positioning as a legitimate member in American higher education, I gradually transitioned my self-perceived “otherness” into my unique advantage as a multilingual expert with lived experiences as a means to fight against linguicism. Consequently, I was able to draw upon my lived identities to serve as a role model to empower my students which in turn empowered myself.

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