Dialogic Leadership in an International Teaching Practicum: Beyond the Romantic Narratives

• In Event: Social and Emotional Dimensions of Study Abroad Programs: Autoethnographies of Leadership and Student Support

Abstract

Purpose
Early studies in the 1990s that investigated international teaching practicums offered by universities focused on the student experience. Typically, they affirmed the value of the overseas teaching experiences for improving students’ understanding of cultural diversity in their teaching back home (e.g. Stachowski, 1992; Thomas, Hill & Cote, 1994).The focus of my paper is on the leaders’ experiences. I identify and reflect on the skills, knowledge and ethical practices of academic leaders involved in international teaching practicums, in particular, the complex relational and intercultural work required to deal with the challenges of leading these practicums in an unfamiliar setting. I also show how university-based leaders might develop their academic/professional identities and knowledge through their experiences of leading such practicums.
Perspectives
This study was informed by my experiences of establishing in 2009 and co-leading a teaching practicum in South Africa for Australian pre-service teachers. The South African teaching practicum, which has been running now for seven years (see Author, 2015a), is underpinned by a dialogic conception of teacher education (Bakhtin, 1981; Freire, 1997). This conception values not just the enacting of literal dialogue between all stakeholders in the practicum but also the forging and negotiating of dialogic interconnections between different educational cultures, experiences and knowledges.


Methods and Data
The paper is an auto-ethnographic narrative-based inquiry (Etherington, 2007; Luttrell, 2010). It draws on strong traditions of teacher education research that focus critically and reflexively on storytelling and narrative (Rosen, 1985; Author 2015b) to generate critically situated knowledge about teacher education in a globalizing world (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010).
The key data are drawn from narrative-based research journal entries kept by the author during the first years of the development of the South African practicum. These are augmented by more recent memory work (Haug, 1987; Onyx & Small, 2001) undertaken in association with other colleagues who have also been leaders of the South African teaching practicum. Memory work has enabled the generation of reflexive and critical perspectives on this data that were unavailable in the period immediately following the practicum placements.
Results/Conclusions
The study shows that dialogic and ethical leadership in an international practicum is crucial if visiting students and leaders and their host partners are to successfully negotiate the cultural and educational complexities of such ventures. It also shows that, like so many students who undertake international teaching practicums, leaders are themselves prompted to reflect on their work and identities as educators and leaders through involvement in such programs.
Significance
Recent large-scale, longitudinal research in Australia, echoing research elsewhere in the world, found that graduating teacher education students feel under-prepared to teach culturally diverse learners when they enter the teaching profession (Mayer, Doecke et al., 2014). That research helps to justify a worldwide move on the part of universities to devote considerable resources toward international teaching practicums, and yet the knowledge, skills and ethical practices of the leaders who accompany students on these practicums are under-researched. This paper contributes to the knowledge base and debates in this area.

Author

• Graham Parr, Monash University