A Chance for Transformation? Norm Confrontation During Study Abroad as Liminal Space

• In Event: Teacher Identity and Lived Experiences in International Contexts

Abstract

To prepare teachers to take on critical perspectives on systemic inequities and to meaningfully and effectively practice culturally sustaining teaching, intercultural exchange and study abroad programs seek to immerse student teachers in cultural contexts that differ from their own in the hopes of broadening teachers’ perspectives, attitudes, identities, and skills. In our review of one such program, we consider the roles, impacts, and potential transformative power of uncertainty and liminality in intercultural exchange. We ask:
(1) Whether/How student teachers experience uncertainty and liminality through disorienting experiences during study abroad, and
(2) Whether/How such disorienting experiences abroad produce transformative possibility within student teachers’ conceptions of an intercultural self and competencies in culturally sustaining teaching.

Authors

• Taylor William Schmidt, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Anja Wilken, University of Hamburg

• Jocelyn A. Glazier, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Andreas Bonnet, University of Hamburg