International Student Teaching: New Zealand and the United States Perspectives on Schooling

Abstract

Six New Zealand and five American education majors completed all or part of a student teaching practicum abroad in an exchange program between Waikato University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Their perceptions of teaching in a system different from their own were self documented and examined through a variation of the constant comparative method of data analysis. Seven categories of personal constructs regarding international student teaching and living in another culture were identified. They are: choices, expectations, impressions, procedures, supervision, philosophy, and recommendations. Responses suggest that through their international experiences, students do acquire new attitudes and beliefs to test against the realities they will encounter when they return home to teach in their home country school systems.