The acculturation process of minority group in a mainstream society is an important issue to understand especially in a multicultural and/or intercultural situation.  Taiwan is a multicultural but definitely not a monolingual society although the percentage of the population of the two racial groups is widely disparate.  They are 97.79 percent Han people and 2.21 percent aborigines (Executive Yuan, Taiwan, 2010).  The fourteen aboriginal tribes that belong to the Malayo-Polynesian Austronesian linguistic family are racially and culturally different from the dominant Han people who belong to the Sinitic (or Sino-Tibetan) linguistic family.  However, the educational policy before 1987, the year martial law was lifted, was more tend to be an assimilation approach.  All aboriginal children enter the mainstream schools of Han people under the policies of educational subsidy and tuition waiver as well as the policy of point-adding. 

In 2010, the percentage of college students of the aboriginal and Han people is still highly discrepant, 98.63 percent Han students and 1.37 percent aboriginal students (Ministry of Education, Taiwan, 2005) even though the percentage of aboriginal college students has increased in ten years.  Most of the aboriginal students have to leave their tribes and to keep survival in the cross-cultural/boundary experiences during the processes of pursuing their higher education in city.  Not surprisingly, very few of the aboriginal people who have graduated from colleges and have earned teacher certificates return to teach in their tribes.  It means lots of aboriginal teachers select to teach in the mainstream schools of Han people.  It is important to know what the processes of identity development of the aboriginal teachers in different contexts are, how the identity developments influence their curriculum consciousness and pedagogical practices, and if any culturally responsive teaching has occurred in the classroom teaching in urban school.

 The theoretical concepts and framework in this study were derived primarily from the thinking of Banks (1994) and Gay (2010).  Banks’ theory on identifications of ethnic youths and Gay’s on culturally responsive teaching are both helpful for further discussion.

Banks, J. (1994). Multicultural education: Nature, goals, and practices. In J. Banks, Multiethnic education: Theory and practice (3rd ed.)(pp. 40-63). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Executive Yuan, Taiwan (2010). The demography of aboriginal people in Taiwan. 2011, 1, 12, derived from http://www.dgbas.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=15408&CtNode=4594 Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. Ministry of Education, Taiwan (2005). White paper on aboriginal education policy. 2010, 12, 19 derived from http://140.111.34.34/main/download/download.php