“I find it odd that people have to highlight other people’s differences – even when there are none”: Experiential learning and interculturality in teacher education
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- 作者：Fred Dervin
- 关键词：informal education ; student teachers ; interculturality ; immigration ; encounters
- 刊名：International Review of Education
- 出版年：2017
- 出版时间：February 2017
- 年：2017
- 卷：63
- 期：1
- 页码：87-102
- 全文大小：
- 刊物主题：International and Comparative Education; Education, general;
- 出版者：Springer Netherlands
- ISSN：1573-0638
- 卷排序：63
文摘
This article examines the role of experiential learning in developing intercultural competences in the context of teacher education in Finland. Local and foreign students studying to become teachers were asked to write five short narratives each about meaningful intercultural encounters they experienced prior to enrolling in an intercultural course. Based on these narratives, the author analyses the potential overlap between the way the students reflect on and interpret these encounters and an understanding of interculturality which concentrates on the construction of self–other and social justice. The discourse analysis of the students’ narratives shows that in most cases, important intercultural learning seems to have already taken place before these students embarked on the course. The article ends with a discussion of the importance of starting from this observation in teacher education and of providing the student teachers with theoretical tools and methods which can support them in expanding their understanding of interculturality in their job as teachers.