Intercultural literacy dialogue: international assessment moderation in early childhood teacher education

ABSTRACT

This research reports intercultural dialogue of meaning making in literacy by lecturers, engaged with an assessment moderation process of early childhood education (ECE) preservice teacher education across Australia, New Zealand and Sweden. The purpose of the dialogue was to inform pedagogical and conceptual knowledge in their courses. The research question is: How does intercultural dialogue inform teacher education literacy practices? Methods include (1) a blind assessment review process using 30 examples from ‘high’ to ‘low’ exemplars of ECE students’ literacy assessment annotations, some from each country, and (2) textual analysis of intercultural student feedback and reflection from student forum comments and, semi-structured reflexive interviews with students about the assessment moderation process. Rich academic reflections on the data have led to our recommendations that the conceptual framework of intercultural praxis could be applied in early childhood preservice teacher education practice. Further, we suggest there are increased possibilities for the use of intercultural literacy with ECE preservice student teachers using virtual and explicit collaborations and texts as explained in this research.

KEYWORDS:

• Intercultural literacy
• intercultural praxis
• assessment moderation
• curriculum internationalisation
• teacher educators’ reflexivity

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge our students and our families who have played an important role in developing our thinking, our writing and sustained us through this work. One reference, Säljö (2005), was originally written in Swedish and a translation completed by our Swedish colleague is included in the text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gwen Gilmore

Gwen Gilmore is a New Zealander who works for Massey University, in New Zealand, in ECE professional development. Her experiences in this research are informed by her teacher education roles in inclusive education, equity, professionalism, transitions and early childhood education, at Victoria University in Melbourne.

Valerie Margrain

Valerie Margrain is a Professor of Educational Work at Karlstad University in Sweden. She has previously worked in Australia and New Zealand, in higher education, teacher education, primary schools, special education and early childhood services. Her research has mostly focused on inclusive gifted education, early literacy, and internationalisation in teacher education.

Elisabeth Mellgren

Elisabeth Mellgren lives and works in Sweden, and currently teaches in Early Literacy, at the Department of Education and Learning, University of Gothenburg. She is also a licensed pre-school teacher and has worked in early childhood, pre-school and in higher education settings. Elisabeth’s research interest is early literacy, transition from pre-school to preschool-class and primary school, and quality issues in early childhood education by ECERS.