Developing preservice teachers’ intercultural understanding and capability through wider field experience/service learning in Peru

Teaching the General Capability of Intercultural Understanding is an Australian government mandate, but an ongoing challenge for teachers, many of whom may have little or no experience dealing with the teaching of intercultural understanding and lack confidence to embed this focus in their classrooms. Hence, teacher preparation is a priority to enable this mandate to be fulfilled. This research project reports on the development of intercultural capability as a result of a short-term overseas Wider Field Experience undertaken by preservice teacher education students attending a regional university in Australia. The results were analysed according to two published frameworks. Survey results and qualitative analysis from 22 participants indicated that the wider field experience enhanced preservice teachers’ intercultural capability and their readiness and ability to teach this priority upon graduation.