Nineteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

Student teachers need to learn how to act appropriately as intercultural educators in a multicultural world. Experiential intercultural learning has been consistently found to be critical toward this end. Nevertheless, the learning opportunities that pedagogical intercultural encounters in the local community may involve for pre-service teachers have barely been investigated in Greece. This paper reports on the results of my thesis that addressed this gap. The study qualitatively explored pre-service teachers’ experiences of Pedagogical Intercultural Community Encounters (PICEs). It took place in two departments of pre-school education in Greece, where participants worked on projects that included off-campus encounters with perceived culturally diverse individuals. The latter were mainly of refugee, immigrant, and Roma backgrounds. The data were collected through individual interviews with student teachers and through their reflective written texts. They were analysed thematically, and Dewey’s experiential learning theory was applied. PICEs were found to foster pre-service teachers’ IL. Specifically, they can enable pre-service teachers to change their own attitudes and to envision changing those of their learners. Secondly, PICEs can help pre-service teachers appreciate the complexity of diversity by pondering over the boundaries of equality, similarity and difference. Thirdly, PICEs constitute a form of praxis, as pre-service teachers are actively involved in their own learning in a way that will also be valuable in their professional educational roles.The study’s main contribution consists in conceptualising PICEs as a community-based educational resource that needs its own space in the literature of Intercultural Learning and of Teacher Education.