Listening, dialogue, and change

Listening Across Difference: Pláticas as a Practice of Connection and Transformation for Adult Learners

This article explores the integration of pláticas—informal, culturally grounded conversations rooted in Chicana/Latina feminist methodologies—as a transformative pedagogical tool in adult learning contexts. Drawing from experiences as doctoral students and educators at a Hispanic-Serving Institution, the authors illustrate how pláticas foster connection, reflection, and critical consciousness across diverse learner identities. Through narrative, theoretical, and practical lenses, the article positions pláticas as a means of validating lived experience, disrupting traditional hierarchies of knowledge, and cultivating intercultural communication competence. The authors provide concrete strategies for structuring plática circles, co-constructing ground rules, designing reflective prompts, and integrating the practice into course assessments. They argue that when implemented with care and intention, pláticas promote inclusive, student-centered learning environments that enhance engagement, support emotional safety, and foster collective meaning-making. Ultimately, the article affirms pláticas as a liberatory practice that strengthens the social and relational dimensions of higher education and reimagines the role of educator as co-learner and collaborator.

Teaching Across Cultures in Music: Rethinking Authenticity and Practice in Initial Teacher Education

In contexts of growing social polarisation and cultural complexity, tertiary educators are increasingly called upon to move beyond celebratory multiculturalism towards critically informed intercultural praxis in preparing students for 21st-century classrooms. Drawing on a sustained transnational collaboration between Australia and Spain within initial teacher education, this paper adopts a collaborative autoethnographic approach to critically reflect on our pedagogical practices and their implications for culturally responsive music education. We examine how intercultural musical encounters, particularly those involving culture bearers, can foster cultural competence and critical reflection among pre-service teachers, while also generating tensions related to knowledge, cultural ownership, authenticity, and appropriation. Building on these reflections, we reconceptualise authenticity as a relational and dialogic process, co-constructed through interaction, mediation, and context-sensitive engagement. We propose a conceptual framework grounded in three interrelated dimensions: collaborative partnerships, relational authenticity, and dialogic mediation through educator facilitation. Together, these principles offer an ethically informed and pedagogically grounded approach to intercultural music education that moves beyond representation towards sustained, meaningful engagement with cultural diversity. By foregrounding the role of the educator as a cultural mediator and drawing on insights generated through sustained intercultural practice and prior research, this paper contributes to ongoing debates on belonging, inclusion, and the development of culturally responsive practices in contemporary music teacher education.

VISUALISING TEACHER ANXIETY AND IDENTITY IN THE SOUTH KOREAN CONTEXT

In South Korea, elementary school teachers are increasingly experiencing anxiety due to intensified emotional labor, heightened parental expectations, and shifting sociocultural perceptions of the teaching profession. While prior research has examined teacher stress from psychological and institutional perspectives, less attention has been given to how anxiety is expressed and interpreted through multimodal and reflective practices within specific sociocultural contexts. This study explores how teachers visualize and reflect upon their anxiety through art-based expression and dialogue, and how these processes relate to their professional identity. Adopting a qualitative multimodal design, the study integrates narrative inquiry, visual analysis, and dialogic interaction. Four in-service elementary school teachers participated in structured art-based activities and reflective dialogues. Data were collected from visual artworks, reflective writings, and recorded dialogues, and analyzed using thematic analysis with multimodal integration. The findings indicate that participants’ anxiety is shaped by external expectations, emotional suppression, and identity-related tensions. The limitations of this study include the small sample size (n = 4) and the exploratory nature of the research, both of which limit the transferability of the findings.  Therefore, the interpretations presented here should be understood as context-specific insights rather than generalizable conclusions. Art-based expression functioned as a reflective medium, enabling participants to externalize and reinterpret their emotional experiences, while dialogue facilitated shared understanding and relational meaning-making. Rather than generalizing beyond the study context, the findings provide insight into how anxiety is experienced and negotiated within a specific sociocultural setting. This study contributes methodologically by demonstrating the value of integrating visual and dialogic approaches in qualitative research on emotional and identity-related phenomena. It also suggests implications for teacher education and professional development by highlighting the importance of reflective and expressive practices.

Cultural Awareness and Self-Discovery in a Student’s Engagement with Multicultural Literature in The Joy Luck Club

This study explored how multicultural literature fosters cultural awareness, empathy, and identity formation through a narrative inquiry involving a freshman high school student in Palau who engaged with Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Grounded in Sociocultural Theory and employing narrative inquiry with thematic analysis, the study examined how the participant interpreted multicultural themes such as discrimination, intergenerational conflict, and hybrid identity. The findings indicated that the participant’s reflections on literary characters, particularly in the chapters “Rules of the Game” and “Two Kinds”, facilitated self-reflection, the reauthoring of personal narratives, and resistance to cultural stereotypes. The study further suggested that multicultural literature can promote empathy, intercultural understanding, and social cohesion, particularly in Small Island Developing States (SIDS), where local and global cultures intersect. Moreover, the findings highlighted the importance of integrating culturally diverse literary texts and learner-centered pedagogical approaches to support students’ socio-emotional development, cultural awareness, and intercultural sensitivity.

Overcoming Challenges and Finding Fulfillment: Teachers’ Narratives of Working with Indigenous Learners and Their Parents

Teaching Indigenous learners requires educators to respond to diverse cultural, linguistic, and contextual realities while fostering equitable and inclusive learning environments. This study explored teachers' narratives of overcoming challenges and finding professional fulfillment while working with Indigenous learners and their parents in the Alabel 2 District, Division of Sarangani, Philippines. Guided by Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory and qualitative narratology, the study employed a qualitative research design to examine how teachers constructed meaning from their lived experiences. Five elementary teachers were purposively selected based on their direct experience teaching Indigenous learners. Data were gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews and analyzed using narrative thematic analysis. The findings generated three clustered themes: challenges, strategies, and insights. Teachers identified insufficient instructional resources and limited parental engagement as the primary challenges affecting culturally responsive instruction. To address these constraints, participants adopted diverse instructional strategies, including technology and multimedia integration, collaborative learning, experiential activities, flexible teaching approaches, and the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge and cultural practices into classroom instruction. The narratives further revealed that teachers derived professional fulfillment from creating positive learning environments, adapting instruction to learners' diverse needs, witnessing learner growth, and respecting Indigenous culture and identity. These findings demonstrate that culturally responsive, relationship-centered, and community-engaged teaching strengthens both learner development and teachers' professional resilience. The study contributes to Indigenous education scholarship by providing narrative evidence of teachers' lived experiences in culturally diverse educational settings. The findings further highlight the need for sustained institutional support through culturally relevant instructional resources, professional development, and strengthened school–community partnerships to enhance educational equity, cultural inclusion, and the holistic development of Indigenous learners.

Affective engagement, empathic understanding, and moral reflection: the role of media narratives in higher education