Globalization has introduced rapid changes to our classrooms, making learning and teaching for culturally diverse contexts an essential component of teacher education.  Within this constant state of transition, conflicting needs, expectations, and accountability impact teachers’ abilities to meet the challenges within their school communities and classrooms (Kissock & Richardson, 2010; Merryfield, 2000).   In order for teacher professional development programs to be successful in improving the intercultural competency of their teachers, they must facilitate a change in thinking towards different ideas about what they can accomplish, and instill a willingness to generate different ideas of how to interpret classroom situations and how to respond to them (Darling-Hammond & Baratz-Snowden, 2005; Deardorff, 2009). 

            Recent research suggests that cross-cultural or international immersion experiences expose students to new pedagogical approaches and educational philosophies, development of self-knowledge and confidence, professional competence, and greater understanding of global and domestic diversity (Cushner, 2007).  Minimal research attention, however, has been directed towards the intercultural professional development of our current teachers.  Furthermore, what is missing from these conversations is an understanding of the fundamental nature of the learning process and how the “everydayness and movement of our lives provides a rich context for developing a deeper understanding of the strong existential, emotional, and spiritual struggles involved in the process” (Kovan & Dirkx, 2003, p. 103).  What happens when teachers participate in cross-cultural or international experiences and how is this connected to a deeper understanding of the self and the outside world?  In what ways is this connected to re/defining the self as a globally minded professional who can effectively teach in culturally rich and diverse spaces? 

            This paper introduces a qualitative case study that investigates a selected group of teachers’ journey of identity transformation through international volunteer experiences.  Two principal research questions guide this study:  (1) What meaning do teachers make of their experience? (2) How did participating in the experience shape their understanding of themselves as educators and their teaching practice?

            This study draws upon a constructivist perspective, highlighting that knowledge is constructed rather than discovered, while also emphasizing the relationship between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’, and the impact of that relationship on the construction of knowledge (Charmaz, 2006; Patton, 2002; Reybold, Brazer, Schrum, & Corda, 2012).  Transformative adult learning theories rooted in constructivist epistemologies describe the processes through which individuals use prior interpretations and structures of assumptions to inform meaning making of new experiences and guide future action (Mezirow, 1978, 1995).  When distortions in perspectives present themselves and constrain the way we perceive, interpret, and feel about the world, a “a shift of consciousness that dramatically and permanently alters our way of being in the world” can occur (Morrell & O’Connor, 2002, p. xvii).  The dramatic shift in transformative learning allows individuals to use the contexts of their experiences to construct and reconstruct personal meeting.  This also reflects the tension between vocation and individuation; vocation being the “active stance toward the meaning of our lives and our outer work, a form of ongoing learning and inner work” (Kovan & Dirkx, 2003, p. 101); and individuation being a “process through which a person becomes ‘whole’, through recognition and integration of conscious and unconscious elements of oneself” (p. 103).  By investigating the sociocultural contexts in which these types of transformative learning experiences take place, we can better understand why teachers voluntarily participate in international experiences and how they make connections to their diverse classrooms.

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