Cross-cultural Learning from Incidents, the Critical Incident Method: some applications concerning the practice of teacher education and parent support

Abstract

This contribution sketches historical and theoretical backgrounds of the critical incident method. ‘Critical incidents’ are perceived as influential events or significant observations that lead to proper examination of attitudes, expectations, behaviour and communication. World-wide, the incident method has proved to be a powerful strategy in cross-cultural training and teacher education. The incident method has also been demonstrated to be of value for other fields of education, such as meetings with parents from different backgrounds when discussing common issues of family education. In this article examples are presented of the construction of incidents in written and visual forms applied to teacher education and parent support. Finally some concluding remarks are made regarding the effectiveness and intercultural meaning of the incident method in the fields of teacher education and parent support.