Construction of Teaching and Learning Cultures in Transnational Pedagogical Development: Discourses Among Palestinian University Instructors

Authors

Vesna Holubek, Tampere UniversityFollow
Pauliina Alenius, Tampere University
Vesa Korhonen, Tampere University
Nazmi Al-Masri, Islamic University of Gaza

Abstract

This qualitative study explores teaching and learning cultures in the context of a community-oriented pedagogical development process initiated during Finnish–Palestinian transnational cooperation. Research data include focus group interviews and texts produced during a pedagogical training program with Palestinian university instructors. The study examines teaching and learning cultures as constructed by discourses in and around the Palestinian university. A poststructuralist discourse analysis identified five discourses of teaching and learning: disciplinary differences, traditional and modern education, improving education, sociocultural and religious context, and political and economic circumstances. The study shows that teaching and learning cultures are dynamic and fragmented as they are constructed by the contrasting discourses. The findings suggest that pedagogical development initiatives need to provide spaces for discursive transformation, especially in the transnational context that introduces additional alternative discourses into the institutional cultural meaning-making.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Holubek, Vesna; Alenius, Pauliina; Korhonen, Vesa; and Al-Masri, Nazmi (2022) "Construction of Teaching and Learning Cultures in Transnational Pedagogical Development: Discourses Among Palestinian University Instructors," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 16: No. 2, Article 9.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2022.160209