Like many previous issues, this issue of Studying Teacher Education presents a range of self-studies of teacher education practices. With articles from Canada, Israel, and New Zealand as well as the USA, each of these instances of self-study explores tensions associated with cultural and cross-cultural issues. Culture tends to be invisible until puzzles and surprises in our professional settings compel us to question our assumptions.
Young Ah Lee's “Self-Study of Cross-Cultural Supervision of Teacher Candidates for Social Justice” presents a detailed analysis of the supervision of teacher candidates from a social justice perspective by an individual working in a culture (USA) other than her own (Korea). Having personally experienced social injustices on arrival in a new culture, she was well positioned to engage in a self-study of her supervisory experiences of individuals preparing to teach.
In “Cultural Perspectives on Teaching and Learning: A collaborative self-study of two professors’ first year teaching experiences,” Ran Hu and Judith Smith explore how their cultural backgrounds, with roots in the philosophies of Confucius and Dewey respectively, were expressed in the teaching experiences of their first year as assistant professors. Their collaboration in self-study took them much further than simple comparison of their different cultural backgrounds.
“A Self-Study of the Teaching of Action Research in a University Context,” by Jung-ah Choi, analyzes four semesters in which the author taught an action research course to classroom teachers. Interpreting the unexpected responses of the students required attention to the differences between school and university cultures, to common assumptions about teaching and learning, and to the epistemologies of different research paradigms.
“Enacting a Vision of Teacher Education by Developing a Common Interpretive Zone,” by Ilana Margolin and Edith Tabak, takes readers into the culture of organizational change and conflict. The authors use activity theory to analyze data collected in a collaborative self-study of Edith's experiences as a new clinical supervisor in a teacher education context.
“Horse Riding 101: The role of experience in reframing teacher education practices” details the impact of Dawn Garbett's return to the culture of a novice to reframe her practices as an experienced teacher educator. Her powerful experiences as a novice rider gave her fresh insights into her students' experiences as novice teachers and enabled her to contribute to their learning by sharing some of her memorable experiences while learning to ride a horse.
Taking a unique teaching strategy into one's classroom guarantees an encounter with student culture, where familiar teaching strategies are expected and new strategies bring challenges. “Adopting Just-in-Time Teaching in the Context of an Elementary Science Education Methodology Course,” by Pamela Osmond and Karen Goodnough, interprets Pamela's experiences using a new strategy as a new science teacher educator.
As Lynnette Erickson and Janet Young explain in their article, “Toward Transparency: Competing discourses of teacher educators and teachers,” teachers and teacher educators work in different discourses that, like cultural differences, are not immediately obvious. Their project intended to assist teachers became complex and problematic when they made changes in the discourse of teacher educators that did not feel appropriate in the teachers' discourse.
We hope that exploring this diverse set of self-studies from the perspective of culture and cross-cultural experiences will be both engaging and informative.