Uncovering cultural assumptions: Using a critical incident technique during an international student-teaching field experience

Abstract

This research examined the critical incidents of 10 United States (US) early childhood student teachers during a three-week university-sponsored international field experience conducted in three urban preschools in Kathmandu, Nepal. The purpose of employing the critical incident technique was to allow the US student teachers to reflect critically on successful and unsuccessful intercultural interactions in an effort to identify cultural assumptions about teaching young children. The approach was used not only to make assumptions visible, but also to make conceptual and behavioral changes based on what was learned from the critical reflection. The student teachers wrote weekly critical incidents, which were then discussed during weekly individual interviews. Three group discussions, a research journal, and field notes were used to triangulate the findings. A qualitative thematic analysis revealed five types of written critical incidents: descriptive, hypothetical, resistive, reflective, and integrative. Illustrative critical incidents are presented to compare and contrast how the international field experience allowed for productive reflection of cultural assumptions for some student teachers while leading to resistance to cultural assumptions for other student teachers. The findings suggest that outcomes vary based on the student teachers’ ability not only to identify their cultural assumptions, but also to challenge their cultural assumptions with actions grounded in ethnorelative reflection when teaching diverse groups of young children in the US and abroad.

Building cultural awareness and intercultural empathy using the critical incident analysis method

“…This method is an active process described by Tripp (1994) in opposition to a more traditional biography method because it aims to enable individuals to “break with the past” (p. 69) and “meet specific practical concerns” (p. 74). This reflective framework, according to Madrid Akpovo (2019), allows teachers to “make cognitive and behavioral changes based on what is learned” to that end the focus is on the process of self-reflection and the fact that it is directly connected to future action steps (p. 148). This study builds on prior research on self-reflection and intercultural awareness by investigating the efficacy of providing participants with a particular self-reflective tool and investigating if it does, in fact, inspire a desire to modify behaviors in the future (see Figure 1).…”

“…Critical incident analysis is a structured critical reflection method and has been defined by Tripp (1994) as the study of self-identified significant or commonplace moments in a practitioner’s life both to “recall, document, and explain past events…as a way of illuminating, articulating, understanding, and gaining control over our current professional practice and habits” (p. 69). Unlike a more traditional biography method, the critical incident analysis is more intentionally aimed at improving practice through the process of examining “judgments that are attached to seeing classroom events and practices” (Madrid Akpovo, 2019). This inquiry-based method has been used in several fields including teaching, medicine, counseling and social work to analyze and work to improve the practice of both in-service and preservice professionals.…”

Transforming Learning Communities Through a Transdisciplinary, Trauma-Informed Approach to Classrooms as Communities

“…Consistent with Akpovo' s (2019) perspective, we believed having candidates choose the incident, instead of the instructors, and prompting them to explain the significance of the incident could identify candidates' perspectives of why the incident was instructive to them. Akpovo (2019) suggests that "it is not the event itself that is important; it is how the teacher interprets the event, and the resulting actions and reactions based on these insights." p.148).…”

Minority-world professionals in majority-world early childhood contexts: How do international field experiences promote intercultural competence or reinforce “professional” ethnocentrism?

“…those with a teacher education degree or license) educators enrolled in university-sponsored international programs. Samara, a White female academic from the USA, has spent the past seven years conducting research with US pre-service early childhood teachers at urban preschools located in Kathmandu, Nepal (Madrid, Baldwin, & Belbase, 2016; Madrid Akpovo, 2017; Madrid Akpovo, Moran, & Brookshire, 2018). Lydiah, an academic originally from Kenya who now resides in the USA, has taken both pre-service and in-service teachers to Kenya for the past 14 years (Kambutu & Nganga, 2008; Nganga, 2016; Nganga & Kambutu, 2017).…”

“…Contextually appropriate practice (Li and Chen, 2016), as well as the notion that teaching is a cultural activity, should be ongoing aspects of the reflective process, as pre-service and in-service teachers revisit and uncover their cultural assumptions. This revisiting and uncovering of cultural assumptions can lead to increased understandings about ethnocentrisms regarding quality education in various cultural contexts (Madrid Akpovo, 2017; Kroll and Meier, 2015; Tobin, 2005; Tobin et al, 1989, 2009).…”