Browsing by Subject "lärarstuderande"

Despite an increasing need for intercultural education, a lack of successful implementation seems to prevail both in Finland and internationally. This thesis offers insight into how student teachers talk about intercultural education in their respective teacher education pro-grams. Based on Gorski’s instructional challenges and previous research on student teachers’ perceived resistance towards intercultural education, this thesis seeks to examine and analyse current discourses among student teachers in Finland. To accomplish this, Gee’s model of discourse analysis was used to examine interviews with 25 student teachers, from four different teacher education programs across Finland. The interviews were conducted as semi-structured interviews in the beginning of 2016, and they were either group interviews or individual interviews. The findings of this study echo previous research, mirroring student teacher’s resistance towards and the use of intercultural education. Student teachers seem to view intercultural education as an abstract concept and something they must teach students as a subject matter, rather than an approach to teaching. The results, however, indicate that existing resistance originates from superficial learning experiences regarding intercultural education and misconceptions, as student teachers almost without exception use ethnicity and intercultural education interchangeably. Implications, including international collaboration between teacher education programs and mandatory substitution periods are additionally discussed