Arts-Based and Narrative Tools for Understanding and Investigating Experiences of Intercultural Teaching

• In Event: Impactful Practices for Internationalizing Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives
In this presentation, I highlight the potential of employing arts-based and narrative methods for uncovering and crystallizing intercultural teaching experiences. Teaching abroad is often considered in light of stages of acculturation and enculturation. However, both culture shock and intercultural competence acquisition are nuanced, fluid, changing, and somewhat ephemeral. In this presentation, I display possibilities for conducting research into intercultural teaching and for engaging in reflective practice on international educator experiences.

Theoretical Framework
This presentation is founded on the experiential methodological framework of narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Research on cross–cultural teaching is also seminal to this study (Cushner & Brennan, 2007; Garii & Schlein, 2011; Phillion et al., 2008; Walters, Garii, & Walters, 2009).

Data Sources
I conducted five 90–minute informal, tape–recorded interviews with five participants. Reflective writing, literature response pieces, and arts-based literary exercises were also included as reflective journal recordings and reflective field note composition.

Results
Literature response pieces were seen as beneficial for crystallizing participant experiences with intercultural teaching. Dream stories, unsent letters, reflective re-creation stories, and metaphors were uncovered as useful means for self-reflection regarding teaching and living abroad and culturally based experiences of reentry.

Scholarly Significance
Few studies examine the experiences of in–service or novice educators who teach abroad. Less literature explores the reentry experience from a cultural standpoint. There is further a paucity of qualitative investigations into these areas. Arts-based narrative approaches for data collection might impact the ways teachers and student teachers unpack their intercultural experiences. Such approaches might serve as valuable tools for shedding light on such professional interactions leading to potential insights of value not only to intercultural teachers, but also for study abroad program leaders and teachers.

Author

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