Effects of School and Cultural Contexts on Student Teaching Abroad Outcomes: Insights from U.S. Student Teachers in Belize, China, and Mexico

Abstract

As student diversity becomes the norm in U.S. schools, future teachers must be comprehensively prepared to work with the increasingly diverse student population through application of informed instruction that enhances general and individual student learning and outcomes. Teacher-education programs increasingly promote student teaching in international settings as a substantive step in serving to develop teachers who embody these new competencies and instructional practices. This study offers a framework and analysis highlighting similarities and differences among three student-teaching abroad settings—Belize, Mexico and China—associated with a state university in the southeastern United States. The study's research findings support the general research literature in international student teaching and introduce new, pattern-based, evidence that relates the comparative impact of country and school-site contexts on specific cultural, professional, and character development influences on student teachers.

Notes

¹Definitions of the nine themes and their associated categories are available from the authors. Note that the terms categories and topics can be used interchangeably in the current study.