Increasing Preservice Teachers' Intercultural Awareness Through Service-Learning

Using a qualitative, interpretive research design, this study examined the development of intercultural awareness of preservice teachers in a service-learning setting. The authors believe that intercultural awareness is a critical disposition for the teaching profession. Data sources included electronic reflection journals of 130 service-learning course participants, comprised of mostly White, undergraduate university students working with elementary school children in culturally diverse settings. Findings illustrated that students increased their intercultural awareness in multiple contexts including linguistic diversity, socio-economic challenges, home culture norms, and military life. The authors concluded that preservice teachers' capacity to recognize and work with learners' different needs builds as they become aware of cultural differences. Increasing preservice teachers' intercultural awareness is a critical professional disposition to develop given the extensive student diversity in today's schools.