Preservice teachers developing humanizing intercultural competence during field-based interactions: Opportunities and challenges

To promote equity in education, teacher educators must prepare teachers to connect with culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in critical and humanizing ways. This study examines how preservice teachers (PSTs) who engaged in a field-based experience made sense of and strove to develop humanizing, intercultural competence (HICC). Findings reveal that through interactions with CLD students, PSTs used discursive tools to build trusting relationships, engage in dialogic learning, and begin confronting systemic inequities in their process of becoming more culturally and linguistically responsive. We discuss implications for preparing teachers to work with students in critical and humanizing ways.