Enhancing Students’ Critical Thinking and Reflective Practice: Transcultural Perspectives on Inclusion and Diversity

• In Event: Situating Complexities of (Missing) Representation in Teacher Education for Social Justice: U.S. and German Contexts

Abstract

This paper focuses on actions taken in teacher education and professional development to promote student’s reflective practice in the context of educational equity. It offers insights into an 8-week project-based online seminar developed by scholars from a US-American and German university that enabled students from both contexts to critically engage with a variety of cross-cultural educational discourses related to issues of inclusive and diversity-conscious teaching. In the process of close collaboration and thorough transcultural exchange, students were provided with theoretical input from various scholars to critically discuss the social construction of ‘difference’ as well as the (re)production and pervasiveness of systemic injustices in school contexts from interdisciplinary, intersectional perspectives. Particular attention was paid to the (de)construction of race, gender, and dis/ability in (literary) teaching materials against the backdrop of a social justice lens and complex power discourses concerned with issues of representation vs. censorship (e.g. book banning). By contrasting and connecting 'glocal’ perspectives on current social, cultural, and political discourses and developments related to diversity, equity and social justice in German and US-American educational contexts, our overall objective was to support future teachers in becoming critical thinkers and reflective practitioners.
In this paper, we will present and critically discuss the theoretical-conceptual considerations of the overall course design, objectives, and materials as well as provide insights into conclusions drawn from empirical data that has been collected during the pilot course (“Transcultural Perspectives on Inclusion and Diversity – Theory and Practice”) in the spring of 2023. Our main research interest revolved around the question of the extent to which the online seminar as a teaching and learning format could enhance pre-service (English language) teachers’ critical (cultural) awareness and agency in the context of diversity-conscious, social justice-oriented teaching. To assess students’ potential development in intercultural competence, we used The Intercultural Development Inventory ® (IDI®) as an instrument and asked students to participate in a 50-item online questionnaire at the beginning and end of the course (pre-post design). To gain more complex insights into individual perspectives on diversity and social justice issues, we analyzed examples of students’ final products (teaching scenarios) and individual written reflections. While the overall quantitative results of the Intercultural Development Survey show no meaningful change in students’ intercultural development, the qualitative data extracted from student reflections and group projects indicate changes in students’ inter-/transcultural awareness and reflective practice. The empirical findings also point to an overall discrepancy between students’ critical awareness of systemic social injustices and their ability to take (transformative) pedagogical action as future teachers. Based on our results, we address the complexities in enhancing students’ agency in countering racial injustice from an intersectional perspective and construct pedagogical opportunities to promote social justice teaching.

Authors

• Alena Beck, Technische Universität Braunschweig

• Chrystal S. Johnson, Purdue University

• Christy Wessel-Powell, Purdue University