Tensions, Transformations and Travel
Comparative Narratives of ‘Becoming’ a Cosmopolitan Educator through an Overseas Study Tour in Singapore
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32674/jcihe.v13i2.2543Keywords:
Asian-Australian academic, autobiography, cosmopolitan learning, reflexivity, study tours, transnationalAbstract
This paper discusses the dynamic and complex dimensions of ‘becoming’ a cosmopolitan teacher educator through an overseas study tour. It employs autobiography as a research method to interpret the experiences of an overseas study tour, and how it has engaged the teacher educators in self-reflexivity of their negotiation of multiple identities: academic, personal and cultural. Our self-narratives reveal how becoming cosmopolitan educators is not only intimately linked to the process of re-construction of oneself as a reflexive person. The process can also be conflicting and unsettling because of how we were positioned by our pre-service teachers. It concludes by highlighting the conditions in which our multiple identities come into existence and how they shape our ways of becoming, and the need for teacher educators to engage in a continual process of professional development as cosmopolitan teacher educators.
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