Touching through the screen: embodied learning through on-line intercultural exchanges among primary school children

Abstract

This paper is based on ethnographic research of Australian and South Korean primary school students’ experiences of on-line synchronous intercultural exchanges as part of a school partnership. Starting with an embodied understanding of learning, I discuss the applicability of body pedagogies to the on-line context in a classroom setting by analysing how the institutional dimension (‘situated epistemic relations’) informed how the children were taught to engage during on-line intercultural exchanges in relation to the children’s embodied experiences of the exchanges (‘practical epistemological analysis’). Through a more holistic approach that includes the body as integral to the students’ digitally-mediated interactions, this paper provides a deeper understanding of the students’ intercultural learning that is not limited to a cognitive focus on language learning and skill acquisition. I conclude with thoughts on future research directions including how children’s embodied experiences of intercultural exchanges may contribute to the longer-term development of an ‘intercultural habitus’.

Keywords:

• Embodied learning
• intercultural education
• body pedagogics
• body pedagogies
• situated epistemic relations
• practical epistemological analysis

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by an Australian Research Council grant (DE160100922) and approved by the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (2016-026) and the Victorian Department of Education and Training Research Ethics Committee (2016_002957). I would like to thank the editors and reviewers for their deeply considered engagement in the development of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 For the purpose of this research and to maintain a level of anonymity, I have deliberately omitted the name of the programme as well as the names of the schools involved. Although potentially still identifiable given the small number of schools that participated in the programme, this measure of anonymity is important for research ethics protocol. The names of the students and all participants are also replaced with pseudonyms or discussed in general terms, such as the position of the person within the organisation (i.e., principal, teacher, director).