Cultural Diversity and Critical Cultural Awareness

Abstract

This case study investigated Dutch and Turkish pre-service teachers' pedagogical insights on cultural diversity and critical cultural awareness in a telecollaboration project integrated into practicum. The intercultural communicative competence framework and the positioning theory were the theoretical frameworks. Participants engaged in asynchronous video communication on cultural and critical issues. The data were collected via expectation papers, a reflective project evaluation journal, videotaped interactions, and semi-structured interviews. They were analyzed via content analysis. The findings revealed the favorable impact of participants' project engagement on their perceptions, cultural, diversity and critical cultural awareness. Despite the pre-service teachers' enhanced cultural diversity and critical cultural awareness, the limited duration of the study and the lack of synchronous interaction did not allow for an in-depth exploration of their diverse critical cultural perspectives. The study has implications for teacher educators conducting telecollaboration projects.