Sharon Carstens

Sharon A. Carstens is Professor Emerita of Anthropology. She received her PhD in Anthropology from Cornell University in 1980 and taught in the PSU Anthropology Department from 1987-2017. Dr. Carstens also served as Curriculum Coordinator for Asian Studies from 2008-2015 and as the Director of the PSU Institute for Asian Studies from 2010-2015. Her long term ethnographic research with ethnic Chinese in Malaysia in both rural and urban settings has focused on issues of identity, religion, ethnohistory, gender, mass media and multilingual language practices and ideologies. Dr. Carstens has also researched pedagogical and curricular issues in Mandarin/English bilingual education in China, Hong Kong, the US, and Canada.

Selected Works:

• Sharon Carstens, Ang Lay Hoon (2019). “Conversational Code Switching: Languaging Chinese Identities in Multilingual Malaysia.” Asian Journal of Social Science 47: 508-533. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685314-04704005
• Sharon Carstens (2018). “Multilingual Chinese Malaysians: The global dimensions of language choice.” GrazerLinguistische Studien 89: 7-34.
• Sharon Carstens (2015). “Bilingual Education for Global Citizenship: Creating an Integrated Language/Culture Curriculum for Mandarin/English Students.” Human Organization 74 (1): 16-26. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.74.1.xq4g071t5742r104
• Sharon Carstens, Tien Whyte, Li-Ling Cheng (2013) Language through Culture, Culture through Language: A Framework for K-8 Mandarin Curriculum 教汉语教文化：贯连小学初中的汉语教学策略 (Bilingual: English and Chinese). Peking University Press.
• Sharon Carstens (2005). Histories, Cultures, Identities: Studies in Malaysian Chinese Worlds. Singapore: University of Singapore Press.
• Sharon Carstens (2003). “Constructing Transnational Identities? Mass Media and the Malaysian Chinese Audience.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 26 (2): 321-344. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987032000054457