• Enabling Preservice Teacher’s Intercultural Competence Through Community-based Learning
Author(s):
Letitia Fickel (presenting / submitting) Jane Abbiss (presenting) Te Hurinui Clarke Liz Brown
Conference:
ECER 2017
Network:
10. Teacher Education Research
Format:
Paper

Session Information

10 SES 11 B, Programmes and Approaches: Inter- and Transcultural experiences and contexts

Paper Session

Time:
2017-08-24
17:15-18:45
Room:
K5.20
Chair:

Contribution

In this paper we provide a documentary analysis of how one initial teacher education programme has been using cross-cultural community-based learning experiences to enable their preservice teachers’ intercultural competence development as the foundation for culturally responsive practice.  

Social, cultural, and linguistic diversity have become a defining characteristic of schools and education systems globally. Yet, in many Western democracies, including countries in Europe, and New Zealand, far too many children and youth from minority communities continue to experience educational disparities (OECD, 2012). This inequity has remained a persistent policy and practice challenge over the last decades, resulting in wide-ranging calls for reforming teacher education (European Commission, 2012).  Of particular concern is better preparing new teachers to engage positively with diversity in ways that engender more equitable outcomes for traditionally marginalized youth (Ball & Tyson 2011; Caena & Margiotta 2010), including the development of intercultural competencies and culturally responsive practice (Caena & Margiotta, 2010; Pecek, Macura-Milovanovic & Vujisic-Živkovic, 2014).

Hyland and Meacham (2004) have noted that many teachers and student teachers implicitly hold deficit assumptions about their students from historically marginalized groups that “can serve to alienate students from school and perpetuates the cycle by reinforcing social distance between teachers and families” (p. 115).  However, there is ample scholarly evidence that demonstrates that by developing culturally responsive practices teachers are better able to provide equitable opportunities for learning for all students (e.g. Gay, 2010). This means developing both the principles and practices that enable them to continually learn about, connect with, and leverage students’ diversity of identity, languages and cultures, family and community resources, and out-of-school knowledge and experiences. (McDonald, Tyson, Brayko, Bowman, Delport, Shimomura, 2011, 1670).  

Therefore, culturally responsive teaching has been posited as an essential component of reframing educator preparation in pursuit of equity (Caena & Margiotta, 2010). Grant and Gibson (2011) have argued that initial teacher education must challenge new teachers to reject deficit views of their students, and their students’ communities, by helping them understand how culture impacts learning, and develop cultural knowledge and connect it to their classroom practice and curriculum decisions. However, pointing to research by Feiman-Nemser and Floden (1986), Hyland and Meacham (2004) caution that placing preservice teachers in schools that serve these young people without explicitly working to challenge their assumptions would lead to “(re)producing teacher[s] who conform to the social distance and deficit thinking that have historically proven so destructive for students in communities of color and low income” (p116). Therefore, they suggest teacher education programmes create other learning experiences that challenge traditional understandings of knowledge, including engaging with the ‘subjugated knowledge’ of marginalised communities (p117).

Cross-cultural community-based learning experiences are one way to teacher education programmes have sought to support preservice teachers in developing “pedagogy that is culturally and contextually relevant to students from backgrounds that are different from their own” (Sleeter, 2008, 563). Evidence from studies on these programme experiences demonstrate that they are effective in creating in preservice teachers an awareness of the cultural strengths of students and their families, and allow preservice teachers to view, experience, reflect upon and change perspectives of how others respond to and make sense of their worlds (Cooper, 2007 246). Thus, as teacher educators we believe that cross-cultural community-based learning experiences hold great potential to serve as the experiential foundation for preservice teachers developing intercultural competence and cultivating the principles and practices that underpin culturally responsive practice.

Method

This paper presents a documentary analysis of our work as teacher educators implementing a cross-cultural community-based learning experiences in an initial teacher education programme in New Zealand. Our work is framed within the socio-cultural context of our bicultural nation, reflected in the treaty partnership between Māori, the indigenous peoples, and non-Māori, where biculturism means understanding of the values and norms of each partner, being comfortable in either culture, and ensuring power sharing in decision-making processes at all political and organizational levels (S. Macfarlane 2012, 32). This means preparing new teachers who have a strong sense of self-awareness, and deep understanding of the socio-cultural context of students’ lives, and developing their bicultural competence and confidence.’ While the context of our work focuses on bicultural competence, we believe these attitudes, skills and knowledge align with those of intercultural competence outlined by Deardorff (2006), and Howard-Hamilton, Richardson and Shuford (1998). Based on our collective wisdom of practice, we believed that university-based and school-based opportunities were not sufficient to support development in this area, and thus incorporated community-based learning experiences in collaboration with the local Māori community. Through this documentary analysis we seek to understand how preservice teacher engagement in these experiences supports their development of the knowledge, skills and attitudes that reflect bicultural competence. In all facets of our work we are grounded by socio-cultural theory which acknowledges the existence of multiple knowledges grounded in cultural and historical contexts, and frames learning as participation in the social world (Vygotsky,1978). This perspective enables us to critique and challenge educational practices that have traditionally privilege Western knowledge and marginalize Māori knowledge. It has also enabled us to critique our own past practices in initial teacher education, and to create new frameworks and learning context for our students. In undertaking this documentary analysis of the community-based learning experiences of our preservice teachers, we have been guided by the principles of practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Donnell, 2006) and self-study in teacher education (Loughran & Russell, 2002). The data come from three cohorts of preservice teachers from 2015-2017, for a total of 75 participants. Data sources include preservice teachers’ reflective journal entries and portfolio evidence, and field note observations and critical reflections from the teaching staff (including the authors). The focus of the analysis is the development of preservice teachers’ development of the bicultural competence that underpins culturally responsive practice.

Expected Outcomes

Our self-study that informs this documentary analysis is ongoing, and as such our initial findings related to the preservice teachers’ development of bicultural competence are tentative and emerging. Our documentation of our practice shows that through these experiences we focus our preservice teachers’ learning toward attending to building relationships with children, how they engage with each other and the adults in the community, and about their interests, experiences and strengths. Another key facet of their learning focused on the new knowledge gained about Māori culture, language and values. Through immersion in the community context the preservice teachers experience Māori ways of learning through working collaboratively and inter-generationally, both foundational concepts of Māori pedagogy. Preservice teachers note the benefit of experiencing and learning through culture, not simply about culture. While the particular focus has been on engaging them in the Māori community, we see that this enables the foundational critical perspective they need to consider multiple worldviews and ways of knowing among various ethnic-cultural groups they encounter as preservice teachers. These emerging findings are suggestive of the powerful learning experiences offered by community contexts for the development of intercultural competence. Preparing new teachers to work positively with student diversity in order to support equitable educational opportunities and outcomes is a complex enterprise, but of critical concern for quality teacher education. We acknowledge that programmes are by necessity shaped by and responsive to the particular social and policy context in which they occur (Caena & Margiotta 2010). Nevertheless, by documenting and critically analyzing our inclusion of community-based learning, we seek to highlight for other teacher educators the affordances and constraints that such experiences offer for preservice teachers to develop intercultural competence as the foundation for culturally responsive practice.

References

Caena, F., & Margiotta, U. (2010). European teacher education: A fractal perspective tackling complexity. European Educational Research Journal, 9(3), 317-331. Cochrane-Smith, M., & Donnell, K. (2006). Practitioner inquiry: Blurring the boundaries of research and practice. In J. Green, G. Camilli & P. Elmore (Eds.), Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research (pp. 503-518). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Cooper, J. (2007). Strengthening the case for community-based learning in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 58(3), 245-255. Deardorff, D. K., (2006) Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(3), 241-266. DOI: 10.1177/1028315306287002 Gay, G. (2010). Acting on beliefs in teacher education for cultural diversity. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 143-152. Grant, C. & Gibson, M. (2011). Diversity and teacher education: A historical perspective on research and policy. In A. F. Ball and C. A. Tyson (eds), Studying Diversity in Teacher Education, (pp 19-61), Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. Howard-Hamilton, M. F., Richardson, B. J., & Shuford, B. (1998). Promoting multicultural education: A holistic approach. College Student Affairs Journal, 18(1), 5. Hyland, N. E. & Meacham, s. (2004). Community knowledge-centered teacher education: A paradigm for socially just educational transformation. In J. L. Kincheloe, Bursztyn A, and S.R. Steinberg (eds), Teaching Teachers: Building a Quality School of Urban Education, (pp113-134). New York: Peter Lang. Loughran, J. J. & Russell, T. (2002). Improving teacher education practices through self-study. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Macfarlane, S. 2012. “In Pursuit of Culturally Responsive Evidence-based Special Education Pathways in Aotearoa New Zealand: Whaia ki te ara tika.” PhD diss., University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ. McDonald, M., Tyson, K., Brayko, K., Bowman, M., Delport, J., & Shimomura, F. (2011). Innovation and impact in teacher education: Community-based organizations as field placements for preservice teachers. Teachers College Record, 113(8), pp1668-1700. OECD. (2012). Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools. OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264130852-en Pecek, M., Macura-Milovanovic, S., & Vujisic-Živkovic, N., (2014). The Cultural Responsiveness of Teacher Candidates Towards Roma Pupils in Serbia and Slovenia – Case Studies. Journal of Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy, 40(4), 359-376. Sleeter, C. E. 2008. "Preparing White Teachers for Diverse Students". In Handbook of Research in Teacher Education: Enduring Issues in Changing Contexts, 3rd ed., edited by M. Cochran-Smith, S. Feiman-Nemser, and J. McIntyre, 559–582. New York, NY, USA: Routledge.

Author Information

Letitia Fickel (presenting / submitting)
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Jane Abbiss (presenting)
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Te Hurinui Clarke
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Liz Brown
University of Canterbury, New Zealand

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