Exploring epistemologies: deepening pre-service teachers’ ways of knowing through international professional experience

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study utilised institutional ethnography to inquire into the lived experiences of 15 Australian pre-service teachers (PSTs) who completed an international professional experience in Indonesia. The PSTs were privy to a unique cultural experience, one grounded in an epistemological stance that differed considerably from their own. Despite completing substantial pre-service teacher education coursework prior to travelling to Indonesia, the PSTs became more acutely aware of how school students, teachers, and community members may operate from varied ways of knowing. As such, in this article we argue that international professional experiences have the possibility to guide PSTs towards newer and deeper explorations of epistemologies, a process of paramount importance in preparing future teachers to work effectively and appropriately in diverse classrooms.