Embedding the 'global' in teacher education programs: An opportunity for the professional development of academic staff? (original) (raw)

Preparing tomorrow’s teachers to take their place as ethical citizens and professionals in a globalized world is complex and requires that academic staff is both engaged and committed to the task. However, academics often report feeling unprepared, underconfident and undersupported when it comes to (re)designing the curriculum to reflect a more global and intercultural perspective. Considering these constraints, this paper presents a study, developed in the context of the project “Internationalizing the curriculum: towards global education in pre-service teacher training”, which aimed to support academics in embedding a global outlook in their teaching practice. The project included collaborative working sessions, during a period of 10 months, and was structured as participatory action research, according to which volunteer academics designed, developed and assessed global education projects carried out in their course units. Using qualitative content analysis of focus group sessions, we analyze the discourses of seven academics on their and their students’ learning achievements, and on the possibilities and constraints of integrating global education in their teaching practice, in an attempt to understand the effects of the larger project in academics’ professional development. Results of the analysis suggest that the project presented a meaningful opportunity for academics, regardless of their working experience and roles, to reconstruct their knowledge and educational practice around a new and relevant topic, and to assume new commitments to themselves, to their peers, to their students and to the institution they work in. Implications of these findings for the continuing professional development of academic staff are discussed.