Source: European Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 38, Issue 1, 2015, pages 71-86
The context of this study is that of Finnish education.
Famed worldwide for its ‘miraculous’ educational system, Finland is rarely talked about for dealing with diversities in education.
The author explores the impact of a course on ‘multicultural education’ given to a cohort of ‘local’ and international student teachers studying to become Newly Qualified Teachers.
He taught the course himself and decided that since only 8 h would be devoted to the issue of interculturality, the course would have to help the students to learn to develop quickly critical competences towards the many and varied approaches to diversities that are ‘available on the market’.
The methodology rests on the use of a documentary on ‘extreme’ intercultural dialogue that the students discussed at the end of the course.
Set in Israel, the documentary follows a class in a multicultural school in Tel Aviv during the second Gaza War in 2008–2009.
The author hypothesises that the documentary, which is often conflictual, would help him to evaluate the students’ learning and how they discuss and problematise such a case of ‘intercultural dialogue’ in education and relate it to their future practice.