Towards Decolonising Teacher Education: Criticality, Relationality and Intercultural Understanding

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper critically examines two studies that investigated pre- service teacher learning in contrasting contexts: an international study visit and a local service-learning experience. We argue that it is useful to conceive of these experiences as intercultural, and propose that how ‘intercultural’ is theorised in the western academy is object-based with roots in colonialism. We contrast this with a relational logic described by Burbules [1997. A grammar of difference: some ways of rethinking difference and diversity as educational topics. The Australian educational researcher, 24 (1), 97–116] and Osberg [2008. The logic of emergence: an alternative conceptual space for theorising critical education. Journal of the Canadian association for curriculum studies, 6 (1), 133–161]. Using alternative framings we interrogate teacher–learner relationships, highlighting how they were adversely affected by hegemonic practices. Findings indicate that when an object-based, colonising logic is the dominant frame, pre-service teachers were more likely to use ‘Othering’ discourses. When relational, decolonising pedagogies were used, pre-service teachers were more able to begin to teach otherwise. We conclude by making a case for intercultural education to take on a critical relational stance that counters the hegemonic violences that continue to be caused by a colonial abyssal line.