Conflicting road maps: cross-cultural professional development for Egyptian educators

Abstract

This article reports on findings from a qualitative research study on overseas teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD). It seeks to explore the perceptions of a cohort of Egyptian teachers about their overseas training experience upon completion of a nine-month training programme in the UK. Data were mainly gathered through four focus-group interviews with a sample of 35 Egyptian teachers during the last week of their stay in England. Findings indicate that the CPD programme did not match teachers’ expectations. In particular, the teachers raised concerns about course content, lack of integration into university life and lack of opportunities for social interaction with other students leading to inadequate language development. The paper explores the clash of aspirations and locates them within a wider discourse of cultural dissonance.

Keywords:

• continuing professional development
• overseas teacher training
• teacher education
• cross-cultural transfer

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Anna Robinson-Pant and Dr. Barbara Ridley for their insightful comments on the earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also go to the Egyptian educators (members of Cohort 42) for their cooperation with the author despite their time constraints.