10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Learning to teach moral education: Perspective of Arab teacher educators from Israel
Najwan Saada
Al-Qasemi Academic College, Israel
Presenting Author: Saada, Najwan
In the last decade, there have been growing efforts to define and to explore the moral work of teaching (Campbell 2008b; Sanger and Osguthorpe 2005) and the knowledge, skills and dispositions (Campbell 2008a; Shapira‐Lishchinsky 2009) that prospective teachers need to have, experience, and learn during their teacher education. It is agreed that new teachers should be prepared to teach morality and to function morally (Campbell 2003, 2008a; Fenstermacher, Osguthorpe, and Sanger 2009; Klaassen, Osguthorpe, and Sanger 2016; Sockett and LePage 2002).
Obviously, teaching moral values in schools requires well-prepared teachers committed to what Sanger and Osguthorpe (2005) describe as the 'moral work of teaching': the enhancing of teachers’ knowledge and skills 'so that they can recognize, interpret, analyse, evaluate, plan, and enact the moral work they engage in everyday in a way that is not only effective and responsible, but meaningful and fulfilling' (Sanger and Osguthorpe 2011, 573). Sanger and Osguthorpe argue that understanding the moral work of teaching entails exploring the teachers' contingent, moral, psychological, and educational assumptions.
However, the research on teacher education programs reveals that they 'come up short' with regard to preparing teachers to be agents of character/moral education in their schools (Buzaglo 2010; Campbell 2008a; Cummings, Harlow, and Maddux 2007; Goodlad 1990; Latzko 2012; Orchard 2021; Pantić 2008; Revell and Arthur 2007; Sanger 2008, 2012; Schwartz 2008; Sockett and LePage 2002). Willemse, Lunenberg, and Korthagen (2008, 446) found, for instance, that 'preparing student teachers for moral education apparently depends more on the efforts of individual teacher educators than it does on any collectively designed curriculum and that the process appears to be largely implicit and unplanned'
Accordingly, the current study addresses the following research questions:
1. How do Arab teacher educators understand and interpret the preparation of moral teachers in their college?
2. What are the moral values that teacher educators want prospective teachers to learn and be able to teach (and why), given the social and political realities of Arab schooling in Israel?
The results of this inquiry shed light on the teacher educator's psychological, moral, educational, and contingent beliefs that inform their work and their understanding of the moral work of teaching. Also, it clarifies the role of minority teacher educators in preparing teachers to transmit moral values in an uncertain and conflicted context.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study relies on a multiple case study which is based on in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 14 Palestinian-Arab teacher educators (8 men) who teach basic required courses in education in one Arab college of education in Israel. The teacher educators were selected through convenient sampling with theoretical replication. The data were analyzed using inductive categorization and thematic methods.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThree themes were revealed after conducting inductive and thematic analysis. The first theme highlights the contingent (institutional) factors that influence and may restrain the teacher educators' mission of moral preparation. It highlights the importance of an organizational culture that supports student teachers' learning to provide moral education, of empowering and unsilencing of student teachers, and of promoting morally-oriented reflective practice in students' clinical experiences. The second theme illustrates the teacher educators' psychological assumptions about morality as represented by the possibilities and constraints of role modelling in preparing moral teachers. The third theme addresses the teacher educators' educational (universal, counter-hegemonic, and liberal) assumptions about the moral purposes of schooling. These assumptions are influenced by the asymmetrical structure of Arab-Jewish power relationships, as well as by the transitional status of Arab society in Israel.
ReferencesBuzaglo, A. 2010. [Teacher Training for Moral Education in State Colleges in Israel]. PhD Diss., Bar Ilan University (in Hebrew).
Campbell, E. 2008a. "Teaching Ethically as a Moral Condition of Professionalism." In Handbook of Moral and Character Education, edited by L. Nucci, D. Narváez, and T. Krettenauer, 601–617. New York and London: Routledge.
Campbell, E. 2008b. "The Ethics of Teaching as a Moral Profession." Curriculum Inquiry 38 (4): 357–385.
Cummings, R., S. Harlow, and C. D. Maddux. 2007. "Moral Reasoning of In-Service and Pre-Service Teachers: A Review of the Research." Journal of Moral Education 36 (1): 67–78.
Fenstermacher, G. D., R. D. Osguthorpe, and M. N. Sanger. 2009. "Teaching Morally and Teaching Morality." Teacher Education Quarterly 36 (3): 7–19.
Goodlad, J. I. 1990. "The Occupation of Teaching in Schools." In The Moral Dimensions of Teaching, edited by J. I. Goodlad, R. Soder, and K. A. Sirotnik, 3–34. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Klaassen, C. A., R. D. Osguthorpe, and M. N. Sanger. 2016. "Teacher Education as Moral Endeavor." In International Handbook of Teacher Education, edited by J. Loughran and M. L. Hamilton, 523–557. Singapore: Springer.
Latzko, B. 2012. "Educating Teachers' Ethos." In Changes in Teachers' Moral Role: From Passive Observers to Moral and Democratic Leaders, edited by D. Alt and R. Reingold, 201–210. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense.
Merriam, S. B. 1998. Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Orchard, J. 2021. "Moral Education and the Challenge of Pre-Service Professional Formation for Teachers." Journal of Moral Education 50 (1): 104–113.
Pantić, N. 2008. Tuning Teacher Education Curricula in the Western Balkans. Belgrade: Centre for Education Policy.
Sanger, M. N., and R. D. Osguthorpe. 2011. "Teacher Education, Preservice Teacher Beliefs, and the Moral Work of Teaching." Teaching and Teacher Education 27: 569–578.
Sanger, M., and R. Osguthorpe. 2005. "Making Sense of Approaches to Moral Education." Journal of Moral Education 34 (1): 57–71.
Thornberg, R. 2008. "The Lack of Professional Knowledge in Values Education." Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (7): 1791–1798.
Shapira‐Lishchinsky, O. 2009. "Towards Professionalism: Ethical Perspectives of Israeli Teachers." European Journal of Teacher Education 32 (4): 473–487.
Willemse, M., M. Lunenberg, and F. Korthagen. 2008. "The Moral Aspects of Teacher Educators' Practices." Journal of Moral Education 37 (4): 445–466.
Yin, R. 2009. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing.
10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Intern Preschool Teachers’ Perception of Their Competence to Cope with Stressful Situations and Abuse Among Pre School Children.
Noa Gouri Guberman, Nira Wahle
Seminar kibutsim Kollege, Israel
Presenting Author: Gouri Guberman, Noa;
Wahle, Nira
Children in situations of stress, neglect and risk are part of the diverse population that preschool teachers meet during their internship year, first year as preschool teachers. Intern teachers experience many challenges in their first year. They are required to act independently and master a wide range of skills from the beginning of the year such as relations with parents and staff members as well as coping with behavior problems ( Bracha & Bocos 2015)Teachers report a lack of professional and helpful tools in coping with their students’ stressful events. (Wajid, Garner & Owen)
The term stress refers to an array of psychological responses to pressure and distress resulting from a physical or psychological event. Stressful situations occur when the perceived stress exceed the coping resources. Stressful life events in children life may vary from mild stressors as a birth of a sibling to major stressors as abuse (Onchwari, 2010). Continuous stress inhibits the emotional and cognitive development of children. Leading to adverse psychological and behavioral outcomes (McEwan 2017; Sapolsky 2015). Such situations can be traced, for example, to the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Extended periods of lockdown led to an increase in complaints about sexual offenses and domestic violence. (Conrad - Hiebner & Byram 2020;Arazi and Sabag, 2022)
Children who experience abuse are at a higher risk of dropping out and developmental difficulties. Due to the severity of these challenging consequences, an educator’s ability to support children in stressful events is of utmost importance. (Walsh & Farrell 2008), Teachers were found as a main source of support in coping with life under stress, (Werner, 2003). Cicchettti and Valentino (Cicchettti & Valentino 2006) present a theoretical model based on Bronfenbrenner's ecological model. (Bronfenbrener & Morris 1998) the model deals with the balance between intensifying risk factors such as duration of risk , and moderating factors like supportive and sensitive relationships with educators acting as compensatory attachment figures.
However, although there is increasing recognition of the importance of integrating social-emotional content in teachers’ training, many teachers lack training in these skills (Waajid, Garner, & Owen, 2013).
Work overload, coupled with emotional stress, may lead to a situation called "compassion fatigue”. The fear of dealing with a child’s report of abuse, leads teachers to treat abuse and stress as topics that should be dealt by certified professionals, such as counselors and psychologists (Lev-Wiesel and Izkovich 2019).
There is a limited body of knowledge in this area. Furthermore, most of the existing knowledge regards school teachers ( Lev-Wiesel and Izkovich 2019,) and only a fraction deals with the training of preschool teachers (Onchwari, 2010).
This study examines the attitudes of preschool teachers in their first year of employment (internship) in regards to their competence to deal with stressful situations among preschoolers. Situations caused by domestic issues, from within the educational system or social and collective stress factors, such as national security or a pandemic. The effectiveness of their training during their three years program and their attitudes towards their role in dealing with stressful situations in relation to other professionals such as psychologists and educational counselors.
Research questions
- What are the emotional attitudes of preschool teachers in their internship year regarding their competence to deal with children experiencing stressful situations?
- Do preschool teachers in their internship year perceive dealing with stressful situations among children as part of their job?
- How do preschool teachers evaluate the training that they have received to deal with stressful situations among children?
- How did covid 19- effected their coping with stressful situations
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
In order to get a comprehensive and diverse picture of the complex subject matter, a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology was implemented using both questionnaires and In-depth interviews (Mixed Methods).
Participants.
Data was collected among 66 preschool teachers in their first year of employment. (internship) Graduates of the Kibbutzim College in Tel Aviv in the preschool education program, who have completed three full years of study and are practicing preschool teachers.
The participants were recruited through an online invitation. The study included 20 preschool teachers in mainstream preschools, (30%) and 46 preschool teachers in special education preschools. (70%)
25 preschool teachers (38%) served as leading preschools teachers, 41 preschool teachers (62%) served as supplemental preschool teachers.
Semi-structured interviews were held with 12 interviewees. The interviewees responded to an invitation distributed to the participants of the internship workshops
Research tools
An anonymous questionnaire was filled by the participants: Intern Preschool teachers perceived competence to cope with preschool children's’ stressful situations, based on (Onchwari, 2010)
The questionnaire included 4 parts:
1. Perceived competence to deal with stressful situations in three main domains
b. Family related stressors. Abuse and non-abuse stressors
c. Stress factors related to the educational framework. Stuff and peer group relationship
d. Stressors related to society. Poverty. War threats
The first part included items that were measurd by a Likert scale ranging from 1- not competent at all to 5- very competent
2. Coping resources - The resources that the participant may use in dealing with stressful situations among children.
3. The role and responsibility of preschool teachers in dealing with stressful situations among children. This items was measured on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1-strongly disagree to 5-strongly agree.
4. Coping with stressful situation among children through covid-19 pandemic.
Interviews
Semi-structured in-depth interviews were held. The interview questions corresponded with the four parts of the questioner such as what is your experience with identifying and supporting children in stressful life events? , how do you perceive your competence in regard to other professionals?
Data Analysis
The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. In light of the large amount of data collected, the material was separated into clusters, such as abuse and non-abuse, stress factors in the family Triangulation was conducted between the qualitative and quantitative data.
The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Themes were extracted from all the interviews, and each of the researchers analyzed the interviews separately.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe research has examined intern teachers’ competence to cope with Stressful life events .Stressors were examined in three Ares : within the family including suspected abuse , stressful life events in the kindergarten and coping with stressors in society such as political unrest or pandemic.
The results of both interviews and questionnaires indicate that preschool teachers reported low levels of competence to deal with situations of abuse, (M=2.00, SD=1.25). They preferred to refer the matter to a veteran teacher, counselors or psychologists and felt that their direct conversation with the children may cause harm (M=4.06;SD=1.2). These findings are consistent with previous studies that describe difficulties among teachers' in dealing with complex emotional content. (Mclaughlin 2000) Preschool teachers reported difficulty in dealing with stressful situations during the COVID-19 pandemic due to remote learning.
In contrast to those findings, when coping with non-abuse stressful situations within the family and in the preschool environment, the findings show that the participants reported higher levels of competence (M=3.36; SD=1.27)
The findings of this study demonstrate the need to train early childhood educators to deal with children experiencing abuse. Abuse is a complex issue that evokes feelings of difficulty and incompetence among preschool teachers, (Walsh & Farrell 2008). An adjustment of the curriculum should be considered in terms of Course Content and Scope. We should also consider providing support to preschool teachers at the beginning of their journey, when they are dealing with children in various situations of abuse.
In an era where the role of a preschool teacher is constantly changing. The training of preschool teachers to cope with divers stress experience among children is still lacking
ReferencesArazi, T., & Sabag, Y. (2020). Increase in child and youth risk situations during the Coronavirus pandemic. JDC-Brookdale.
Bracha, E., & Bocos, M. (2015). A sense of coherence in teaching situations as a predictor of first year teaching interns' burnout. Procedia – social and behavioral sciences 209, 180-187.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P.A. (1998). The ecology of developmental process. In W. Damon, & R.M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology. Vol. 1: Theoretical models of human development (5TH ed., pp. 993-1028). New York: Wiley.
Broshi-Eisen, D., Lotner-Tamir, M., Oz, M., & Shadmi, C. (2008). Teacher-student dialogue: An outline for teacher-student personalized conversations. Jerusalem: Israel Ministry of Education Psychological Counseling Service.
Cicchetti,D., Valentino,K.(2006). An ecological transactional perspective on child maltreatment. In D, Cicchetti & D,J, Cohen (Eds), Developmental Psychopathology.Vol.3 pp. 129-201.
Conrad-Hiebner, A., & Byram, E. (2020). The temporal impact of economic insecurity on child maltreatment: a systematic review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 21(1), 157-178.
Friedman, Y. (2003). School of self-management. In A. Walensky & Y. Friedman (Eds.), School for self-management: An international perspective. Jerusalem: Israel Ministry of Education.
Gilat, A. (2007). To be close: First aid for teachers in coping with children’s distress. Mofet.
Jinny, M., Shoretz-Sagi, A., Marki, T., & Aviezer, A. (2014). Positive teacher-student relations as a secure base for the child’s emotional welfare, academic obligation, and functioning in school. Megamot, 480-512. http://www.jstor.com/stable/23686837
Hollingworth,H. & Winter, M,K. (2013). Teacher beliefs and practices relating to development in preschool: importance placed on social–emotional behaviours and skills. Early Child Development and care, 183, https://doi-org.mgs.smkb.ac.il/10.1080/03004430.2012.759567
Lev-Wiesel, R., & Itzkovich, T. (2016). Violence towards children and youth in Israel: Between frequency and reporting – factors that encourage vs. factors that delay reporting. Haifa: University of Haifa.
McEwen, B,S. (2017) The resilient brain: epigenetics, stress and the life course. Psychoneuroendocrinology. ;83:76 Available from: https://www. Scie
McLaughlin, C. (2000). The emotional challenge of listening and dialogue. Pastoral Care, 16-20.
Onchawari, J.(2010). Early childhood inservice and preservice teachers’ perceived levels of preparedness to handle stress in their students. Early Childhood Education Journal, 37, 391-400.
Sapolsky, RM. (2015) Stress and the brain: individual variability and the inverted-U. Nat Neurosci,18(10),1344–6 Available from: http://www.nature.com/ doifinder/10.1038/nn.410
Waajida, B., Gamber, P. W., & Owen, J. E. (2013). Infusing social emotional learning into teacher education curriculum. The International Journal of Emotional Education, 5(2), 31
Walsh, K.,Farrel, A.(2008) Identifying and evaluatingteachers’ knowledgeun relation to child abuse and neglect. Teaching and Teacher Education ,24,585-600.
Werner, E,E. (2003) Resilience in development . In annual editions: Child growth and development ,2000/2001, pp. 212-214. McGrow Hill.
10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Emotion suppression among Ultra-Orthodox Jewish female teachers
Riki Vertaimer, Izhar Oplatka
Tel Aviv University, Israel
Presenting Author: Oplatka, Izhar
The scholarly literature and research on emotions in teaching has shown that teaching is inherently an emotional practice (Labaree, 2000; Zaretsky & Katz, 2018) and that school life is very complex, mainly because emotions are an integral part of the learning process). Likewise, emotions are related to a variety of important outcomes such as student achievement, teacher moral, school effectiveness, and so forth (Jiang, Vauras, Volet & Wang, 2016; Kelchtermans, 2011). As a result, the interest in researching emotions in teaching has increased over the past decade (Oplatka, 2018). However, research on emotion management in teaching has not received much attention in research literature and become a kind of a "missing link". Even when the issue of emotion management is studied, it has usually been explored mainly in western societies while our knowledge about this topic in traditional, collective societies is extremely limited. After all, societies differ from each other in the way in which their cultural and social structures affect emotion expression in the public sphere (English & Oliver, 2013).
To the best of our knowledge, this study focuses for the first time, on the issue of emotion management among female teachers from the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish society. This society is characterized by cultural closure and unique norms that differ largely from Western cultures and influence the way emotion is managed by individuals living and working in this society.
Communities characterized by strong religious observance and social closeness encourage their members to suppress their emotions publically in order to maintain social cohesion and avoid self-indiscipline (Saroglou, 2013; Vishkin, Ben-Num, Schwarts, Solar & Tamir, 2019). Similarly, emotions seem to contrast collectivistic values dominating the Ultra-Orthodox society and, therefore, the individual is expected to suppress his or her emotions in any interaction with other individuals out of the families. Self-restrained is highly valued in this society (Vaserman, 2015).
Likewise, in the Ultra-Orthodox community everything that is unrelated to Torah Study and devotion to the God (like emotions) is considered socially negative. Thus, emotions such as pride, anger, aggression, and greed are forbidden and one should refrain from feeling or expressing them. In other words, one should suppress a display of emotions that are inconsistent with good virtue.
The purpose of this study was, though, to identify forms of emotion regulation among Ultra-Orthodox female teachers during their work in schools serving the Ultra-Orthodox communities. It also traced the cultural, social and organizational factors affecting these forms of regulation.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedSince the study dealt with people and their perceptions and experiences relating to the emotional world in which they live, the study was carried out using the qualitative research method and was based on the principles of the qualitative-constructive paradigm that is characterized by its holistic attitude to phenomena (Marshal & Rosman, 2011). This method is preferable in cases such as these, in which the research question attempts to trace the nature of phenomena of little knowledge (Creswell, 2014). The research tool was a semi-structured in-depth interview that included an organized series of questions subject to changes in accordance with the dynamics created with the interviewee.
The study's population included 13 Ultra-Orthodox teachers (women only) who have at least 3 years of seniority - a period of time that allows the teacher to properly get to know the school comers, its various systems, cultural codes and similar. 8 teachers were employed full-time and the rest part-time - to make sure that they were teaching a lot of hours that required a host of of interaction at the school. The sample is characterized by different seniority and roles and student configuration, aiming at maintaining a sample that represents the widely studied population. They all teach in schools belonging to the Ultra-Orthodox Lithuanian sector.
Manual analysis of the interview data followed the four stages described by Marshall and Rossman (2011): “organizing the data,” “generating categories, themes and patterns,” “testing any emergent hypothesis” and “searching for alternative explanations.” This analysis aimed at identifying central themes in the data, searching for recurrent experiences, feelings and attitudes in order to be able to code, reduce and connect different categories into central themes. The coding was guided by the principles of “comparative analysis” (Creswell, 2014), which includes the comparison of any coded element in terms of emergent categories and sub-categories.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe main findings of the study indicate a number of insights regarding the suppression of the feelings of Ultra-Orthodox female teachers who teach at the educational system of ultra-Orthodox society.
The results of the current study revealed a collective cultural structure that differs from this discourse and identifies the suppression of emotions as an expression of respectability and a goal to aspire to. According to the Ultra-Orthodox approach, which fears the danger of direct and explicit expression of emotions, Ultra-Orthodox teachers are required to suppress their emotions, including positive emotions such as joy and enthusiasm and negative emotions such as anger and bitterness. The more the teacher manages to suppress her emotions and respond calmly to the various situations during her work, the higher her position is perceived between the school comers. As a result, the teachers who serve as an educational model refrain from expressing their feelings during their work. In addition, the current study has shown that ultra-Orthodox society is different and opposes the Western worldview that advocates striving for a meaningful personal connection with the student. In ultra-Orthodox society, learning is traditional and based on a great emotional distance between the teacher and her students, which is one of the causes of the emotional repression process of the teacher at the school.
The current study flooded the issue of emotional repression of Ultra-orthodox female teachers during their work and turned the spotlight on the many emotional difficulties faced by Ultra-Orthodox female teachers and their feelings in relation to this. The study found that suppression of emotions is an inherent part of the work of the teachers in the school, and that it stems mainly from the Ultra-Orthodox culture that strives for it.
ReferencesCreswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage.
English, T., & Oliver, P. J. (2013). Understanding the Social Effects of Emotion Regulation: The Mediating Role of Authenticity for Individual Differences in Suppression. National library of medicine - American Psychological Association, 13(2), 314-329.
Jiang, J., Vauras, M., Volet, S., and Wang, y. (2016). Teacher emotion and emotion regulation strategies: Self- and students' perceptions. Teaching and Teacher Education, 54, 22-31.
Kelchtermans, G. (2011). Vulnerability in teaching: The moral and political roots of a structural condition. In C. Day, & J.C.K. Lee (Eds.), New understanding of teacher's work: Professional learning and development in schools and higher education (pp 65-82). Dordrecht: Springer.
Labaree, D. (2000). On the Nature of Teaching and Teacher Education: Difficult Practices that Look Easy. Teacher Education, 51(3), 228-233.
Marshall, C. & Rossman, G. (2011). Designing qualitative research (fifth edition). Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage Publications.
Oplatka, I. (2018). Understanding emotion in educational and service organizations through semi-structured interviews: Some conceptual and practical insights. The Qualitative Report, 23(6), 1347-1363. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol23/iss6/6.
Saroglou, V. (2013). Religion, Personality, and Social Behavior. New York: Psychology Press.
Vaserman, N. (2015). I have never called my wife: Marriage in Gur Hassidim. Sede-Beker: Ben Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism. (Hebrew).
Vishkin, A., Ben-Nun, B. P., Schwartz, SH., Solak, N. & Tamir, M. (2019). Religiosity and Emotion Regulation: Journal of cross-cultural psychology. 50 (9):1050–74.
Zaretsky, R & Katz, Y.J. (2018). The Relationship between Teachers' Perceptions of Emotional Labor and Teacher Burnout and Teachers' Educational Level. Athens Journal of Education, 6 (2), 127-144.
10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Intergenerational Dialogues: Learning from an Older Generation
Luciana Joana1, Rita Tavares Sousa1, Leanete Thomas Dotta2, Amélia Lopes1
1University of Porto, Portugal; 2Lusófona University, Portugal
Presenting Author: Sousa, Rita Tavares
The increase in life expectancy, the very strong technological development in the last three decades, and the structural and subjective changes underlying the transformations of modern societies have increased the distance between generations and qualitatively reconfigured it. A reality with a great impact on the forms of communication and cultural reproduction and production. This situation is felt in different contexts of life, education, and professional work. In all cases, it is the conditions of socialization and its main actors that are strongly questioned, appealing to creative intentionality in promoting intergenerational dialogue.
According to Barros and Monteiro (2019) intergenerational dialogue favours the construction of bonds, breaks down barriers of social and cultural stereotypes and prejudices. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize age and cultural differences using them as an educational tool for the construction of intergenerational relationships. Intergenerational relationships are understood as links established between people or groups of people with different ages and in different development cycles, enabling the exchange of experiences and contributing to the production of knowledge in a given community (Ferreira, Massi, Correio & Mendes, 2015). Interaction between generations improves the transmission of cultural values and promotes a sense of worth for people of all ages: young people who learn from older people tend to develop more positive and realistic attitudes about the older generation; the latter group, in turn, feels valued and able to continue contributing to the community in which they live (Massi, Lourenço, Lima, Xavier, 2012).
As do so, intergenerational relationships enable the establishment of an exchange of information between subjects and starting with these exchanges, each develops and reworks their experiences. This will allow people of different ages to learn and teach each other, according to their own views of the different generations. From the perspective of Newman and Halton (2008), this intergenerational learning may be defined as a social vehicle that “purposeful and ongoing exchange of resources and learning between older and younger generations” (p. 32), regarded as a platform that brings positive impact to the learning environment (Netshandama, Nevhudoli, 2021). Intergenerational learning is therefore a generational phenomenon in the workplace that is of particular interest to human resource development; it concerns individuals’ joint construction of knowledge through an exchange of information with one or more individuals from different generations (Ropes, 2013).
For these reasons, projects related to intergenerational dialogues have seen their importance grow. A study conducted by Pstross et al. (2017), for example, attests to the positive impact of intergenerational programmes in higher education settings. They found that through these programmes, students acquired an understanding of ageing and of services provided to older adults and learned to interact better with them. Also, Santoro, Pietsch and Borg (2012) investigated what pre-service teachers learned from a former generation of teachers about the context and nature of teaching and teacher education during the 1950s and 1960, founding that pre-service teachers drew inspiration from the older teachers’ emotional connection to the profession, and their own passion for teaching developed or intensified as they came to understand teaching as a rewarding lifelong career.
Building on this framework this pilot study was focused in creating intergenerational learning spaces based on a collaboration between university students and relevant people from an older generation. This enabled the dialogue between generations and the acquisition of knowledge about historical facts - and the way they were experienced by society from 1950' - 1970', values and lifestyles from these years based on the narrated experiences of older generations.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis pilot study was developed under the scope of the project “Fifty years of teaching: factors of change and intergenerational dialogues”. The participants were 16 students enrolled in the optional curricular unit "Intergenerational Dialogues, Education and Challenges of Contemporary Societies", in an Education Sciences Master’s degree of a Portuguese University during the first semester of the 2022/2023 The main objectives of this study were: (1) to bring students to reflect on the conditions of intergenerational dialogue from the projects and initiatives developed in different contexts, and (2) to explore the possibilities for the creation and development of promoting intergenerational dialogue developing an intergenerational dialogue project and evaluate its effects.
During the first lessons students were invited to explore the concepts of "generation"; "intergenerational dialogues" and the use of biographical narratives in qualitative research. After that, they identified the person with whom they want to establish their intergeneration dialog through a biographical interview, providing them with the opportunity to develop their understanding of historical facts from 1950' - 1970' society and the way interviewees experienced it, the values and lifestyles from these years based on the lived life experiences of their interlocutors.
3 smaller groups were formed and mentored by one of the 3 teachers of the curricular unit. After all students define their main objective and prior to conducting the interviews the students were given instruction by each teacher-mentor on the fundamentals of biographical interviewing. They then constructed the interview guide with questions related to their individual main objective.
Students audio-recorded the biographical interviews, transcribed them verbatim and then analysed them, looking for data to use to construct their narrative of the interlocutors lives. The narratives were presented by a multimodal form and presented in an open class.
Finally, students were invited to participate in a focus group in order to elicit information from the students about their perceptions of these intergenerational dialogues and the biographical narrative as a research method; what they had learned from their interlocutors about the social and political context of the 1950s - 1970s, and what connections they had made between their own lives and generation and their own experiences.
The student’s reflections, the products of the projects, the teachers' field notes, and the focus group carried out will constitute research data that will be analysed by thematic content analysis in order to assess the effects and correlative production of recommendations.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe preliminary results show the benefits of engaging higher education students in intergenerational learning initiatives. Students state that they gained knowledge, competences and skills which contributed to both their personal and professional development. As student 6 refers, "I really learned a lot apart from the academic skills and knowledge, I learned about personal and relational development too".
Some students report the possibility of intergenerational dialogues promoting intergenerational and intercultural solidarity. This is related to the fact that through intergenerational dialogues students experience a transformation in their attitudes and are able to understand more deeply the backgrounds of their interlocutors. Knowledge about the past through the lives of the interviewees was another point referred. War and hunger; dictatorship and lack of freedom; and the birth of the consumer society are some of the topics most mentioned.
Another interesting result seems to be the students’ awareness of the possibility of a different pedagogical climate at the university created through the way this curricular unit was methodologically thought and implemented: working in small groups mentored by a specific teacher and the uncompetitive and collaborative atmosphere created between all the class. As student 11 pointed out,
"I want to emphasize the importance of the way the classes were held as the biggest incentive for a good “performance” on the part of all students (...) the small working groups, with the mentorship of the teachers, allowed not only a closer and guided monitoring of what was the work we were developing, but also the sharing of different opinions and feedbacks by all the members of the group, and allowing closer relationships."
In this sense, the preliminary results suggest that intergenerational dialogue is an excellent methodology for enabling transformative education. The development of intergenerational dialogues programmes seems to create significant learning opportunities and a transformation in attitudes between generations.
ReferencesFerreira, C.; Massi, G.; Correio, A.; Mendes, J. (2015). Intergerational dialogue meetings: points of view from youths and the elderly. Distúrbios Comun, 27(2), pp. 253-163.
Massi, G.; Lourenço, R.; Lima, R.; Xavier, C. (2012). Práticas intergeracionais e linguagem no processo de envelhecimento ativo. In Santana, A.; Berberian, A. Fonoaudiologia em contexto grupais. São Paulo: Plexus Editora, pp. 33-59.
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