Place-based education and pre-service teachers: a case study from India

Abstract

Case studies of successful place-based education that involve international partnerships are rare. This article reports on an inclusive educational collaboration between pre-service teachers at an Australian university and primary and secondary school-aged children in a slum area of Delhi, India. Encouraged to undertake teaching that affirmed and extended the children's existing linguistic and cultural knowledge, the six teacher candidates collaboratively planned and implemented exemplary programmes geared to the children's interests and needs. This highly inclusive teaching and learning took various forms: a photographic project in the community, the collection of family portraits and stories, a dance and drama performance, and rich conversations on topics ranging from popular culture to politics. Using data drawn from observations of teaching, teacher candidate interviews and written reflections, and artefacts of student learning, this article analyses the processes and outcomes of this highly successful teaching. Essential to the success of this initiative was focused preparation that stressed cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity, a rejection of deficit notions about children and families living in slums, knowledge of Indian socio-political complexities, and a commitment to the building of equitable and ethical relationships with the Indian children and NGO staff. It is anticipated that this analysis will inform further attempts at place-based collaboration in the service of quality education.

Keywords:

• place-based education
• inclusive education
• community
• pre-service teachers
• teacher education

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge and thank the six teacher candidates whose excellent work formed the heart of this research report: Siobhan Henry, Samantha Hill, Jo Higginson, Linda Hogan, Gabrielle Procter, and Richard Weissel.

Notes on contributors

Paul Molyneux is a lecturer in Language and Literacy Education in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at The University of Melbourne. His research interests centre on the role bilingual education and place-based pedagogy can play in aiding students' identity formation and in enhancing educational access and success for students from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. He currently leads a University of Melbourne team undertaking a longitudinal investigation into bilingual teaching and learning in a highly multicultural suburb of Melbourne.

Debra Tyler is a lecturer in the Curriculum and Pedagogy Department at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at The University of Melbourne. She coordinates one of the core subjects of the Master of Teaching (Secondary): Social and Professional Contexts. She also co-coordinates an elective for the Master of Teaching (primary and secondary) students, Education, Practice and Place with Paul Molyneux. Her research focus is on place-based pedagogy, international students, transnationalism and social media.