Developing Narrative and Critical Lenses in Research on Intercultural Teaching

• In Event: Critical and Narrative Perspectives on Intercultural Teaching

Abstract

Objectives: It has become increasingly critical for both novice and experienced educators to bring to their diverse classrooms a set of dispositions, skills, and experiences that will enhance learning for all students, especially pupils from diverse cultural and language backgrounds. Intercultural teaching experiences offer opportunities for teachers and student teachers to learn about cultures and cultures of schooling via first–hand interactions. In this way, intercultural teaching enables educators to intertwine the personal, political, cultural, social, theoretical, and practical as a means of making important changes in school and classroom life (Huber, 2010). Intercultural teaching and learning is further seen as connected to ongoing identity development (Eng, 2008; Warring, 2008). Within this presentation, we address the need for including critical and narrative lenses to this significant discussion in education and teacher education.
Theoretical Framework: This presentation draws on narrative research and critical narrative research traditions, such as those developed in the area of intercultural teaching (Eng, 2008; Warring, 2008). These theories of narrative inquiry and critical narrative inquiry shaped our overall investigative standpoint.
Methods and Data Sources: This investigation employs the narrative inquiry research tradition (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). This research orientation highlights experiences as central to teachers’ practices and to the overall construction of the curriculum (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988). The inquiry framework of narrative inquiry embeds notions of the significance of experience to education, which enabled us to make use of an experiential lens to analyze the significance of adding critical and narrative lenses to work in the area of intercultural teaching.
Results: This presentation offers educators and researchers a unique view on intercultural teaching and learning that supports their work in increasingly diverse schools nationally and internationally. While previous work in allied fields have offered deep discussions of the power of the narrative as a tool for implementing critical intercultural dialogue and enhancing community growth (Rimmington & Alagic, 2008; Solinger, Fox, & Irani, 2008; Sorrells, 2013), few works in the field of teacher preparation provide in–depth analysis of experiential narratives of teaching in international school settings and little research offers critiques of intercultural teaching.
Scholarly Significance: This presentation is important, since we engage in critical and narrative exploration of intercultural teaching, intercultural competence, and the relationship between work in different countries and teaching in diverse democracies.

Authors

• Candace M. Schlein, University of Missouri - Kansas City

• Barbara Garii, SUNY - College at Oswego