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International Review of Education

, Volume 63, Issue 1, pp 87–102 | Cite as

“I find it odd that people have to highlight other people’s differences – even when there are none”: Experiential learning and interculturality in teacher education

  • Fred Dervin
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

This article examines the role of experiential learning in developing intercultural competences in the context of teacher education in Finland. Local and foreign students studying to become teachers were asked to write five short narratives each about meaningful intercultural encounters they experienced prior to enrolling in an intercultural course. Based on these narratives, the author analyses the potential overlap between the way the students reflect on and interpret these encounters and an understanding of interculturality which concentrates on the construction of self–other and social justice. The discourse analysis of the students’ narratives shows that in most cases, important intercultural learning seems to have already taken place before these students embarked on the course. The article ends with a discussion of the importance of starting from this observation in teacher education and of providing the student teachers with theoretical tools and methods which can support them in expanding their understanding of interculturality in their job as teachers.

Keywords

informal education student teachers interculturality immigration encounters 

Résumé

« Je trouve bizarre de relever des différences chez les autres même s’il n’y en a pas » : apprentissage expérientiel et interculturalité dans la formation des enseignants – L’auteur de cet article examine le rôle de l’apprentissage expérientiel pour l’acquisition de compétences interculturelles dans le contexte de la formation des enseignants en Finlande. Des élèves maîtres finlandais et étrangers ont été priés de rédiger cinq récits brefs, relatant chacun une rencontre interculturelle marquante qu’ils avaient vécue avant de s’inscrire à un cours interculturel. Sur la base de ces récits, l’auteur analyse le chevauchement potentiel entre la façon dont les étudiants considèrent et interprètent ces rencontres, et une conception de l’interculturalité axée sur la construction du soi-autre et de la justice sociale. L’analyse du discours des récits des étudiants révèle que dans la majorité des cas, un apprentissage culturel significatif semble avoir été accompli dès avant la fréquentation du cours. L’auteur conclut par une argumentation sur l’importance de partir ce cette observation dans la formation des enseignants, et de fournir à ces étudiants des outils et méthodes théoriques qui peuvent les aider à élargir leur conception de l’interculturalité dans leur vie d’enseignant.

The work of an intellectual is […] to bring assumptions and things taken for granted again into question, to shake habits, ways of acting and thinking, to dispel the familiarity of the accepted, to take the measure of rules and institutions.

(Foucault 1994, cited in Gordon 2000, p. xxxiv).

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Teacher EducationUniversity of HelsinkiHelsinkiFinland

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