Juggling Selves: Navigating Pre-service Teaching Experiences in Overseas Contexts (original) (raw)
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2014
Current development in global migration flows reveals a rapid increase in student mobility through international education. However, the study of teacher education-migration nexus is relatively unknown in migration and education research. This paper aims to address such a lacuna. Taken from a larger longitudinal study, this paper offers a hermeneutic phenomenological examination of four international pre-service teachers undertaking Masters in Teaching in one large Australian university. They arrive on student visas with the intention to be qualified to teach, and gain permanent resident status, upon graduation in Australia. Such motivation is an important dimension of transnationalism situated within their social imagination of the West. Drawing on Appadurai’s (1996) work on imagination, I identify two broad currents that shape their imaginations to migrate to Australia through teacher education studies, namely: Fitting-In that explores the forms, contents and workings of cultural ...
WHAT MAKES A MOBILITY CHAMPION? QUALITATIVE INSIGHTS ON TEACHERS' MOBILITY EXPERIENCES
Teachers' mobility is one of the facets of Higher Education Institutions internationalization, and despite its importance in implementing the program's purposes it is still disregarded by researchers, with most mobility studies focusing on students. This research concentrates on highly active mobility teachers and aims to delve into their experiences, namely by identifying facilitators and goals for this repeated internationalization and by analyzing the outcomes of these initiatives in their personal lives, professional activity, home and host students, and for their Universities as a whole. This study adopts a qualitative exploratory approach. Having as sample universe the teachers of one Portuguese University that in a 7-year period (2009-2016) engaged in mobility experiences under the Erasmus program (N = 107), 8 were identified as having the highest number of initiatives and were invited to participate in this study. From these mobility champions, 5 accepted, resulting in 5 phenomenological interviews. Data was collected in January 2017. The participants shared an integrated view of the Erasmus mobility, being essential for its success the additional opportunities of joint research and the strengthening of international relationships and networks. Prior relations with teachers from the host University and ongoing research projects stood out among the facilitators. The opportunity to observe and get to know other cultural settings was also mentioned as one determinant stimulus. Still, the outcomes in terms of teaching methodologies and best practices as well an effective impact in home students seemed residual. Moreover, the ability to encourage other teachers to join the program was very limited, often confined to close colleagues and research partners. Despite its exploratory nature, this study demonstrates the relevance of further research on mobility champions to assess the success and possible pitfalls of repeated mobility experiences in terms of extended institutional outcomes and well as individual gratification of the teachers involved. Based on the results, we suggest the consideration of a wider set of outcomes in the appraisal of mobility initiatives, as well as the widespread of champions' insights on the topic in order to motivate inexperienced teachers to embrace internationalization. Hopefully this paper is able to inspire not only research but also teaching mobility initiatives.
On Enhancement of a Teacher’s Intercultural Competence via a Mobility Term
Studies About Languages, 2011
Fast shifts in the Bologna process leading towards the establishment of a coherent and cohesive European higher education area (EHEA) have initiated many European tertiary institutions to pool their academic resources and cultural traditions together in order to promote the development of integrated study programmes and joint degrees. To meet the challenges of EHEA, eight European teacher training institutions have reshaped the already existing MA teacher training study programmes into a joint one, entitled "European Master for European Teacher Training" (EMETT), and integrated two extra core areas related to Intercultural Studies and Multilingualism to be implemented via a mobility term. The authors of the paper, members of EMETT designers' group, focus on the teachers' intercultural communicative competence, necessary for studying and practicing abroad. The target competence enables the mobility participants to cope with their own cultural backgrounds in interaction with the others. This paper juxtaposes the theoretical perspective on an interculturally competent European teacher to be trained via a mobility term with the current student teachers' attitudes towards the importance of the development of mobile European teachers to be trained and educated for practicing in the international context. The theoretical assumptions are followed by the data analysis of the diagnostic survey carried out by the EMETT design team at eight European universities to learn student teachers' attitudes towards a study period abroad, highlighting the attitude differences between such sample groups as student teachers of languages vs student teachers of other subjects, East Europeans vs West Europeans, Lithuanians vs representatives of other EU nationalities.
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Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 2015
This article explores the shaping of Australian and Malaysian preservice teachers' possible selves in a short-term mobility programme. With the theory of possible selves, individuals imagine who they will become based on their past and current selves. The focus of the research was on pre-service teachers' possible selves as global and culturally responsive teachers. The experiential learning through participation in the programme allowed participants to consider their future possible selves as teachers with a deeper understanding of diverse learners' needs and how they might strive to address these needs in their own classrooms. The scaffolding of reflections in the programme encouraged the preservice teachers to take on multiple perspectives, to step outside their comfort zones and in many ways to see the world from different eyes. The research found that through experiential learning in the short-term mobility programme both the Australian and Malaysian preservice teachers gained in positioning their cultural selves currently and as future teachers, suggesting that there is merit in utilising the theory of possible selves in future research in the area of shaping teacher identity. KEYWORDS Experiential learning; intercultural awareness; possible selves; short-term mobility programme; teacher identity The theory of possible selves This article explores the perceived possible selves of undergraduate pre-service teachers who participated in a short-term mobility programme. In particular, the research considers pre-service teachers' perceptions of their possible selves in relation to their becoming global and culturally responsive teachers. The theory of possible selves describes an individual's hopes and fears in relation to what they perceive they are able to achieve and become (Markus & Nurius, 1986; Markus & Ruvolo, 1989). An individual has an array of possible selves relevant to particular social settings which are derived from representations of the self in the past and imagined representations of oneself in the future, but these selves must be connected in some way with representations of one's current selves to make sense to the individual. For example, a student training to become a teacher may have had a favourite teacher in the past who inspired them to follow this career path. They then imagine themselves as such a favoured teacher in their future career and take action towards meeting this goal (enrol in teacher education). In imagining oneself situated in a desired future, possible selves function as incentives for behaviour and decision-making. Creating possible selves relies on one's level of self-knowledge but a self-knowledge that is not well-anchored in a social experience. Instead, this kind of self-knowledge represents specific, individually significant hopes, fears and fantasies and is the direct result of previous social comparisons against who the individual perceives they could become (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Possible selves are sensitive to situations that communicate new or inconsistent information about self and challenge the individual to continually reframe their trajectories for who they want to be. Possible selves, as a theory has been used before in relation to the notion of shaping pre-service teachers' professional identities (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Hamman, Gosselin, Romano, & Bunuan, 2010). Due to their relative lack of teaching experience, the shaping of pre-service teachers' identities is highly susceptible to the influence of their contexts as they try to behave as the teachers they want to become and avoid behaviours of teachers they do not want to become. Identity itself is a difficult term to describe with little consensus on a single definition. It can be seen to be both
Journal of Education for Teaching International research and pedagogy, 2019
The aim of the study was to explore the motives underpinning career mobility, and the impact of such mobility on changing the perceptions of senior teacher educators from Israel who have experienced cross-cultural professional transitions during the mid-career stage (hereafter referred to as 'internationally oriented teacher educators'). A thematic analysis of five interviewees' retrospective narratives highlighted three motives driving career mobility: the opportunity for professional development; the joy of adventure and challenge; and the need to bring about a fundamental change in their careers. In addition, two categories of changes in perceptions that occurred following international mobility were mapped: (a) pluralistic perceptions in a multicultural higher education environment, and (b) culture of learning among the younger generation. The discussion raises similarities and differences between the findings and the literature on career mobility in higher education.
International mobility and psychological factors: a related study for teacher training
2nd World Conference on Psychology, Counselling and Guidance-2011, 2011
In recent years international mobility programs in higher education levels have received much attention given the benefits that participation in these programs brings both to students and staff and to institutions which promote these. This paper presents the preliminary results that the board of The University College of Teacher Training in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain) have conducted in order to look into believes, feelings and obstacles that teacher-to-be students express regarding the participation in international mobility. The desired goal in this introductory research is to collect data that could turn out to be useful to the board in the design of appropriate and attractive international training offers to the students enrolled in the teacher training studies of the College
European Scientific Journal, 2014
Over the last years most countries have been immersed in a process of globalization that has given rise to a growing interdependence between societies as well as a strengthening of international relations both in the economic-financial and in the political and communicational levels.New societies are emerging where structural reforms associated to the process of deregulation and liberalization caused deep changes in work relations. These changes became apparent in the need for growing levels of education and training to gain access to a job and in the growth of importance of the service sector in the structure of production. In this context knowledge is one of the most efficient and dynamic productive inputs, laying the foundations of a new world economy based on information and knowledge, and thereby making education a vital component for the generation and transmission of education. Historically, education has evolved hand in hand with socio-technological changes. Nowadays, progress in information-technology and communication promote a new educational paradigm, whereby the search for quality, pertinence, and internationalization in higher education has a prominent place. The goal of this paper will be to present some indicators to analyze the evolution of the process of internationalization of education in the
Wayfaring: A phenomenology of international teacher education
2019
Becoming human is at the heart of education worth the while. In an age of accountability, tensions arise between teachers, parents, and policy makers, each of whom express markedly different ideas of what is most educationally worthwhile. It is in teacher education programs, however, where I suggest that becoming human can be cultivated with a variety of ends in mind and where the overriding aim can be to enliven a more socially just world. I propose that international placements provide unique opportunities for fostering the kind of teacher identity formation that puts pedagogical relationality at the forefront of our personal, interpersonal, and social commitments. I seek to understand how international practica are experienced by student teachers. What unique characteristics, formative of pedagogical practices, does an international teacher education placement for pre-service teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, offer? Participant responses and my own stories reveal the phenomenon of discomfort as pedagogically transformative. Weaving these stories together as an account of teacher 'wayfaring,' I show how the discomfort experienced internationally can be very different from the way it is experienced in local and familiar teaching contexts. Discomfort in international teacher education 'wayfaring' offers the very possibilities for pedagogical growth that are in keeping with the fuller human becoming of students whose lives these novice teachers will touch. This phenomenological study contributes to the conversation about the importance of international placements in teacher education and the understandings gained have implications for programs locally and internationally. It addresses the tension expressed by those who describe their international placement as "the hardest" and "the best thing I've ever done." I transpose dispositional leanings and learnings from time spent with a cohort of student teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico to the local settings in which I, as a school principal, am working in British Columbia. My commitment to phenomenological inquiry and a lean into discomfort have rejuvenated my liveliness and life practices as a traveller, educator, and researcher. Beginning teachers who embrace discomfort also learn that disruptions may well indicate something worth the while is happening that is worth leaning into. Their wayfaring can be pedagogically transformative.