| This study examined the impact of a cultural immersion, student-teaching abroad experience on the way white, Midwestern preservice teachers think about and plan to teach about the world. As part of the Global Exchange Project (GEP, a pseudonym) fourteen preservice teachers spent eight weeks living and teaching in Kenya, East Africa. As a participant-observer I followed four secondary preservice teachers through five weeks of the experience. Data collection included a series of in-depth taped and transcribed, semi-structured interviews that captured the participants' prior life histories, narratives of critical experiences in Kenya, and reflections after they returned to the U.S. Additional data came from my observations of the preservice teachers while teaching, field notes of their social interactions, and concept maps they constructed to describe how they will teach about Kenya. World-views were often impacted during initial encounters, moments of cultural dissonance, and when participants reflected back on the process. Many began to acknowledge their own culture characteristics and privilege as they became the minority in social situations. Narratives of critical moments in the participants' experiences demonstrate that although individuals actively construct perspectives within their lifeworlds they are also impacted by systems of power and oppression. Finally, these narratives indicate the potential for incorporating new global content, issues, and perspectives into secondary social studies instruction. At the end of this research, I suggest areas teacher educators should address when promoting a more inclusive, and less ethnocentric, view of the world. |
