Promoting Cultural Competence in Teacher Education Through Education Abroad

• In Event: 49.088 - Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: 49.088-13 - Preservice Teacher Development in International Contexts

Abstract

Education abroad programs provide pre service teachers the opportunity to immerse themselves in new contexts, actively apply their theoretical knowledge, and analyze their beliefs about culture and education. While studying abroad, students confront their ethnocentric worldviews and begin to consider the ways that their own culture as well as the cultures of their students influences teaching and learning. This work contributes to the limited number of qualitative studies that bolster our understanding of how education abroad coursework can foster cultural competence through cultural immersion, interaction, and reflective practices. By doing so, this study contributes to the literature on how to develop preservice teacher’s developing cultural competence skills and global perspectives, necessary components for teaching diverse groups of future students.

Authors

• Melissa Landa, University of Maryland

• Lijuan Shi, University of Maryland - College Park