Study abroad programs: are they an effective tool for developing a social justice standpoint for preservice teachers?

Overseas study abroad programs to Asia are funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and offered to Australian undergraduate students. In this chapter we investigate the theme of social justice in teacher education programs through short-term international mobility programs. Research aims reported in this chapter identify the benefits and challenges encountered by preservice teachers when they participate in international study tours. Data findings draw attention to the effects of international study tours on the development of intercultural competency skills for preservice teachers. Preservice teachers articulated the benefit of exposure to a pedagogy of discomfort and its connection to interculturality. In many cases encountering a pedagogy of discomfort (Boler and Zembylas, 2003) created opportunities for ‘mindshifts’ to occur for preservice teachers. This assisted their movement from an ethnocentric standpoint to an ethnorelative standpoint (Bennett, 2004).