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How do preservice teachers (PSTs) understand social justice within the context of education-focused study abroad programs? How might traveling across cultural borders facilitate PSTs'™ development of a social justice mindset? Drawing on previous studies and examples from an ongoing study of 6 annual, short-term study abroad programs, this article explores how PSTs reported experiences related to social justice and suggests implications for study abroad programs in teacher education. We propose that the context, curriculum, and co-curricular activities of a study abroad program have the potential to impact how PSTs conceptualize social justice and that an intentional focus on context-specific issues of social justice from a critical perspective has the potential to both broaden and deepen their conceptualizations. We suggest approaches from the programs that provided opportunities for PSTs to develop nuanced understandings of social justice in education and showed promise for preparing PSTs with global competency to serve diverse students.

Preservice teachers' international cross-cultural experiences can provide opportunities for the exploration of epistemic frontiers. In this article we suggest that postglobal teacher preparation take a critically reflective approach that engages preservice teachers in border thinking, which allows for other ways of knowing while studying abroad. Through international cross-cultural experiences, preservice teachers can recognize the disparate impacts of neoliberal economic globalization on educational and social equity within the metaphorical global South and the global North. We examine the narratives constructed by preservice teachers through the reflection of their international cross-cultural experiences during a Honduras Study Abroad Program. The article also explores the implications of a postglobal preparation for preservice teachers.

In this article, we explored Hui students' lived experiences in school in eastern China and the impact of their experiences on their identity construction. We used postcolonial theory as a theoretical framework and narrative inquiry as a research methodology to guide questions that we asked, data collection, data analysis, and interpretation and discussion of the findings in the study. We found that schooling for the two Hui students in eastern China is a process of reproducing mainstream Han ideology; taking away their culture, beliefs, knowledge, and identity; and imposing the mainstream Han culture and knowledge on Hui students as truth. The participants, two Hui students in an elementary school in eastern China, accepted the identity constructed by mainstream Han teachers and were confused about their Hui identity.

In response to a critical need in teacher preparation, study abroad programs aimed at developing multicultural competencies in pre-service teachers have proliferated across the United States. Multicultural competencies constitute the ability to challenge misconceptions that lead to discrimination based on cultural difference, reflect on one's assumptions and biases, and create a classroom environment sensitive to the cultural background and academic needs of all students. Research has shown that a majority of pre-service teachers are White, middle class, and monolingual speakers of English with little or no exposure to the diverse backgrounds and cultural knowledge of non-White students. Many pre-service teachers do not engage in the social, historical, and political issues that relate directly to inequality and lack of opportunities among different cultural groups in schools and society. Consequently, teacher preparation for multicultural education attempts to address these issues by bringing a change in pre-service teachers' perceptions of self and other by providing opportunities for critical reflection through course work, cross-cultural field experiences, and study abroad programs. In this article the authors examine how critical reflection during a study abroad program to Honduras facilitates pre-service teachers' multicultural competencies for personal and professional growth. They position this study within teacher education literature with a focus on multicultural education, study abroad, and critical reflection. Next, they draw from Dewey's notion of critical reflection to provide the conceptual framework for the study. Subsequently, they highlight a specific study abroad program to Honduras as the context of the study. They follow this with an outline of the basic qualitative research design and report findings from the study. They conclude with a discussion on the implications of their study for teacher preparation and teacher educators invested in developing multicultural competencies in pre-service teachers.

Universities in the United States and elsewhere offer study abroad programs to meet requirements that graduates have cross-cultural competencies and an international perspective on their discipline. Study abroad courses and field experiences for preservice teachers address two major challenges specific to the teaching profession: (1) how to prepare White, middle class, female students enrolled in teacher education programs to work with the increasingly diverse populations of students they will teach in the future; and (2) how to develop global perspectives in preservice teachers. The authors conducted a study of the experiences of preservice teachers on a three-week summer study abroad program in Honduras in order to examine how differences in understanding ethnicity, race, class, and gender affect the process of teaching and learning in diverse settings. This article provides an overview of this study abroad program, the qualitative methodology of the research study, an analysis of students' perceptions and perspectives, and a discussion developing preservice teachers' global multicultural competencies through international cross-cultural interactions. The authors' research indicates that the lived experience of studying abroad provides preservice teachers the intellectual and critical starting point for multicultural awareness of the educational, social, and political relationships between their lives and other cultures. (Contains 9 notes.)

Parental and community involvement play a key role in the Chinese American students' fight for their rights. In order to understand the reasons behind the parental and community support of Chinese students, a survey was conducted among Chinese parents to assess what they know about language loss, power, knowledge, and democracy. The results demonstrate that Chinese parents know what is valuable to their children's education; that Chinese parents know the importance of having their culture represented among school teachers, administrators, and board members and the importance of fighting for power; and that those Chinese students made the right decision to fight for their right to study Chinese as a foreign language. To examine this issue, it is necessary to position it within the existing research literature. The authors review literature on knowledge, power, language, and democracy to help in understanding why these students fought for their right to learn Chinese and why that action failed. The findings from the survey are discussed in light of the current knowledge base. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)

Critical multicultural education and its promise of cultural inclusion face a crisis induced by powerful neoliberal forces that view education as an economic enterprise rather than open dialogue and inclusive pedagogies. With this in mind, this article uses interpretive phenomenology to examine how US American preservice teachers engage in the process of decolonization to challenge neoliberal influences in education and develop multicultural awareness during an international cross-cultural field experience in Honduras. Participants in this study comprise seventy-six preservice teachers from a Mid-Western university who went on a study abroad program to Honduras. Data for the study were collected through interviews, discussions, class assignments, reflective journals and researchers' field notes and observations. Multiple levels of data analysis reveal that international cross-cultural field experiences promote a deeper understanding of colonial social relations and questioning of powerful neoliberal networks that perpetuate the status quo to disadvantage diverse and minority students. Findings also indicate that through reflexive and critical dialogue preservice teachers negotiate difference, engage with the self and other, and question their own knowledge and practices in sustaining colonial relations of privilege and domination with implications for classroom practice. This study suggests that ongoing multicultural awareness at every stage of teacher preparation, beginning at the preservice level, has the power to effect change in future classroom practice so that all students, including diverse minority populations experience educational equity and equal opportunities for academic success.

Background/Context: The article examines how international field experiences promote cross-cultural awareness in U.S. American preservice teachers through experiential learning. The findings presented here are based on a 6-year study of a short-term study abroad program in Honduras that included an international field experience component and took place from 2003 to 2008. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study: This article examines questions that contribute to the field of teacher education and the effort to prepare future teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms as early as the preservice level. Several questions guide this study: How do international field experiences prepare preservice teachers to teach in diverse settings? How does experiential learning in an international context complicate preservice teachers' cultural knowledge? What are the pedagogical implications of increased cultural awareness among preservice teachers for classroom practice? How do international field experiences open preservice teachers to future opportunities to explore and work in culturally diverse communities? Participants and Setting: The current study presents a study of 49 preservice teachers from a Midwestern university enrolled in a short-term study abroad program to Honduras as part of an international field experience. During this field experience, students were placed in a local elementary or a secondary school, were enrolled in two required courses, visited rural and urban schools, and visited archeological sites. Research Design: The qualitative collective case study employed data that included questionnaires, interviews, focus interviews, course assignments, discussions, journal reflections, and researchers' observations and field notes. Analysis sought to triangulate findings from the multiple data sources for accuracy and reliability when reporting the findings. Conclusions/ Recommendations: Findings from the study demonstrated that experiential learning in an international setting is key to developing preservice teachers' cross-cultural awareness. Application of cross-cultural concepts during field experiences provided preservice teachers with theoretical understandings and practical applications for teaching culturally diverse students. Recommendations include international field placements for providing a unique and critical site for promoting cross-cultural awareness through experiential learning; more cross-cultural opportunities for preservice teachers that provoke questioning of conventional teaching and school knowledge; and international field experiences in diverse classrooms that promote preservice teachers' understanding of themselves and how to teach culturally and linguistically diverse students.

This study critically examines knowledge in elementary school textbooks in China. Language analysis and story-line analysis are used to examine how the knowledge related to minority groups and how the knowledge related to the Han group are introduced and interpreted. This study finds that the Han knowledge dominates elementary school textbooks in China and that minority knowledge and culture are under-represented, which demonstrates that the dominant Han group's knowledge is seen as the "truth" while minority knowledge is seen as backward. Moreover, through the dominant Han group's selection and construction of school knowledge, the Han group reproduces its ideology and legitimates its hegemonic control over minority groups. Minority knowledge and culture are, therefore, subjugated. (Contains 1 note.)

We explore ways class, gender and race complicate perceptions and experiences of preservice teachers during an international field experience in Honduras. Data were collected over 5 years through observations, group discussions, course assignments, and on-site focus group interviews and post-trip individual interviews. An inductive approach combined with cross-comparative analysis reveal diverse ways class, gender and race shaped and re-shaped preservice teachers' perceptions of self, peers, and host community members. We conclude with a call for international cross-cultural experiences that encourage preservice teachers to critically examine their perspectives, positions in the host community, and learning during study abroad.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of narrative inquiry to contribute to an understanding of immigrant students' educational experience. Research on immigrant students' education is reviewed and the need for detailed examination of these students' experiences in schools, such as is done in a narrative inquiry, is demonstrated. Current trends in narrative inquiry that focus on multicultural and cross-cultural phenomena are examined. Key questions that narrative inquirers engaged in international and comparative education need to consider are discussed. One narrative inquiry on Mainland Chinese immigrant students in Hong Kong is presented to demonstrate the particular qualities of this form of inquiry and its potential for understanding immigrant students' educational experience. Dilemmas and concerns associated with this form of inquiry are briefly addressed. (Contains 3 notes.)

We explore immigrant students' experience of schooling focusing on Yang Yang and his family. We present insights into immigrant Chinese educational experience in Canada and bring forward a narrative-inquiry framework for the study of student experience. We find that--contrary to some of the expectations of Chinese immigrants--family relations, student learning, and school policies are complicated, with families finding it difficult to translate Chinese educational values in the Canadian context and their children facing serious learning and social difficulties. (Contains 7 notes.)

This article discusses a technology project that enables preservice teachers to have field experiences in diverse settings from a distance. Using the interactive capabilities of video conferencing over the Internet, preservice teachers engage in a "virtual" field experience with a diverse classroom in a distant school. Preservice teachers involved in the program have the opportunity to be involved with students they would not experience in the local area, to work with a teacher with knowledge of diversity, and to use technology in meaningful, productive ways. In this article, three teacher educators explore their goals in implementing the project, and discuss preservice teachers' understandings of diversity based on an analysis of electronic portfolio materials and questionnaires. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

This paper explores a narrative approach to diversity in teacher education. One story is presented, initially without context; as layers of context are added additional possible readings of the story are suggested. A second story is contrasted with the first by using a three-dimensional space--temporal, interactional and in-place--to provide context for the stories. Using the framework the stories are analyzed and a distinction is made between "teacher knowledge" and "knowledge for teachers." The resulting implications for teaching about diversity in preservice teacher education are explored.

As educators of both preservice and in-service teacher education students, 1 of the key questions we ask ourselves is how to prepare White students in rural areas of the United States to meet the needs of increasingly diverse populations of students. In this article, we discuss the conflicting research on how to meet goals of multicultural teacher education and explore the potential of using narratives in preservice and graduate classes. We argue for the inclusion of what we term life-based literary narratives to bring experiential qualities to multicultural theories and to develop students' narrative imagination--the ability to reflect on experience, question assumptions, and actively empathize with others. We describe texts and processes used in the classes we teach that foster the development of these abilities. The goal is to enable our students to learn to listen to and hear the stories of others, to experience lives different than their own, not through abstract reasoning, but through developing emotions and empathic understanding, through examining hearts and minds. Life-based literary narratives show promise in assisting students to envision multicultural education as a transformative process for social justice and to see themselves as agents of social and educational change.

Explored the experiences of five visible minority immigrant women as they went through the teacher certification process in Ontario, Canada. All had teaching experience and certification in their native countries. Data from observations and interviews indicated that these women faced great obstacles (systematic, social, and general) in attempting to become teachers in North America which served to dramatically alter their dreams. (SM)

This is the last of three papers based on a 20-month study of teaching and learning in a diverse classroom in a downtown community school in Toronto, Canada. The purpose of the research was to describe the details of teaching and learning in a multicultural classroom and to document successful strategies in working with immigrant and minority students. The three papers detail the process by which this focus on classroom life led to a critique of the literature and to a new way to think about multicultural teaching and learning which I call narrative multiculturalism. In this paper, I explore the process of becoming a narrative inquirer in a multicultural landscape and the implications of this way of thinking on developing new kinds of understanding. I relate this experientially oriented work to new ethnographies and other work already finding its way into the field. I explore a narrative multicultural way of thinking in greater depth. I use my own work with a teacher participant to re-imagine multicultural life in schools and classrooms. The study demonstrates the potential contribution of narrative multiculturalism to understanding multicultural life and multicultural teaching and learning. (Contains 6 notes.)

This is the first of three papers based on a 20-month study of teaching and learning in a diverse classroom in a downtown community school in Toronto, Canada. The purpose of the study was to examine teaching and learning in a multicultural classroom and to document successful strategies in working with immigrant and minority students. The three papers detail the process by which this focus on classroom life led to a critique of the literature and to a new way to think about multicultural teaching and learning that I call "narrative multiculturalism." In this paper, I explore the place of multiculturalism in education and describe several limitations of the traditional ways of examining the issue. I also outline the understanding with which I began the study and describe the nature of my inquiry. I use my autobiographical experiences of multiculturalism and multicultural research to reflect on the literature of multicultural education. The narrative of my relationship with a teacher participant provides a conceptualization of the field and suggests the nature of narrative multiculturalism. (Contains 5 notes.)

This is the second of three papers based on a 20-month study of teaching and learning in a diverse classroom in a downtown community school in Toronto, Canada. The purpose of the research was to describe the details of teaching and learning in a multicultural classroom and to document successful strategies in working with immigrant and minority students. The three papers detail the process by which this focus on classroom life led to a critique of the literature and to a new way to think about multicultural teaching and learning, which I call "narrative multiculturalism". In this paper, I provide a sampling of stories that illustrate what contributed to my changing thinking about multiculturalism. Four short stories focus on a participant teacher in her school, in her classroom and in interaction with her students. The stories illuminate the complexity of multicultural teaching and qualities of narrative multiculturalism. In the analysis of the stories I explore multicultural understandings that developed from the experience of being in the classroom, being in relationship with a teacher participant, and our on-going dialogue. (Contains 2 notes.)

Explores issues of race, gender, and class, focusing on three Chinese women teachers' in-between cultural experiences in Canada and China and one black teacher's experiences in a Canadian multicultural school. In both cases, understandings of race, gender, and class and the effect on identity grew out of participants' personal and professional life experiences. (SM)

Three essays on second-language instruction are presented. One describes a letter exchange between teachers as a means of exploring and understanding classroom and instructional issues; another (in French) describes a teacher's reflective examination of the immersion teaching experience; and a third reports on a classroom study of the effectiveness of error correction practices in improving students' grammatical performance. (MSE)

Introduction Adolescents in suburban American schools are expected to follow class rules and school discipline policies, and little attention has been paid to their rights. Since young people in schools [...]