Abstract
Exposing pre-service teachers to international professional experiences through a short-term visiting programme serves to challenge their understandings of good quality practice through disturbing assumptions and expectations previously formed through experiences in their own country/culture. Much of the research in international study focuses on pre-service teachers preparing to teach in primary, secondary or language classes. In this study we present the perceptions of pre-service early childhood students who underwent a short-term international experience. In particular we explore the ways in which their experiences impacted on their understandings of quality early childhood service provision. In the increasingly neoliberal Australian early childhood sector externally imposed standards define quality and this is enacted in relatively homogenous ways in practice, opportunities to observe practice arising from different understandings serves to challenge thinking, potentially leading to different world views (Piaget’s accommodation).
Highlights
Incorporating international study in teacher education programmes is not a new idea
We wanted to discover if our STIE would impact on students’ frameworks for understanding quality EC service provision; if their sense making of the Australian policy which defines quality is modified by disruptive experiences presenting quality in different ways
The ultimate aim of the STIE is to support the development of EC graduate leaders who are capable of discretionary professional decision-making, influenced strongly, but not constrained, by policy
Summary
Incorporating international study in teacher education programmes is not a new idea. Research has demonstrated over many years that preservice teacher education students ( called preservice teachers) who gain experience overseas are much better prepared to teach in multicultural classrooms and are more globally minded (Walters, Garii, & Walters, 2009). Pre-service teachers who have had some kind of international experience are often found to be more culturally competent (Walters et al, 2009) They are more likely to be self-confident, adaptable, resourceful and have a good self-esteem (Barkhuizen & Feryok, 2006; Walters et al, 2009). Anderson, Lawton, Rexeisen, & Hubbard (2006) demonstrated improvements in cross-cultural sensitivity in US students who spent 6 weeks in Europe and the UK. These changes were demonstrated 4 weeks after the completion of the international study. In contrast Houser (2008) and Nieto (2006) argue that even short cultural plunges (2 hour plunges), appropriately scaffolded and with support for reflection, can be very effective in helping students become more aware of their own values and biases and to improve their sensitivity
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