This chapter discusses the importance of developing intercultural competence as a foundational strategy in teacher education. The primary argument asserts that specific, mandated-content assessments do not help newly trained teachers to develop skills and knowledge related to thoughtfulness, criticality, cultural responsiveness, and caring for the young individuals with whom they work. The author attributes this to the lack of intercultural sensitivity and intercultural communication in teacher education discourses. Researchers suggest that caring in schools and other such institutions have diminished as there are distinct gaps in the relationships between teachers and culturally diverse students causing these students to fall out of the school systems. The chapter informs about the need to equip teachers with intercultural sensitivities and intercultural communication skills to help them navigate the changing demographics in classrooms. Finally, it provides some insight into discovering missing links in teaching and pedagogical approaches and offers some strategies for bridging the ever-widening intercultural gaps.

This chapter explores the actions musician-teachers in the extremely diverse and complex context of the Kathmandu Valley imagine that might hold potential for contesting and altering processes of marginalisation and stigmatisation in Nepali society. The empirical material was generated in 16 workshops involving 53 musician-teachers and guided by the Appreciative Inquiry 4D model (e.g. Cooperrider et al. Appreciative inquiry handbook: for leaders of change. Crown Custom, Brunswick, 2005). Drawing upon the work of Arjun Appadurai, we analysed the ways in which engaging the collective imagination (1996) and fostering the capacity to aspire (2004) can support musician-teachers in finding resources for changing their terms of recognition. We identified five actions that musicians and musician-teachers take to legitimise their position in Nepali society: (1) challenging stigmatised identities, (2) engaging foreignness, (3) advocating academisation, (4) countering groupism, and (5) promoting professionalisation. We argue that these actions suggest the need for music teachers to be able to ethically and agentively navigate both the dynamic nature of culture and questions of legitimate knowledge, which may be fostered through an emphasis on professional responsibility (Solbrekke and Sugrue. Professional responsibility: new horizons of praxis. Routledge, New York, 2011) in music teacher education.

This ethnographic study examined the (un)intended 1 consequences of increased privatization of Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Nepal and Kenya. Qualitative data showed overreliance on high-stakes standardized tests increased competition for ‘good grades or examination scores’, thus (un)intentionally creating ideal conditions for proliferation of for-profit private schools that predominantly taught culturally decontextualized education at all levels of schooling. Private schools in both countries served high-income families and children, while low-income families and children did not have access to ECE or attended government and not-for-profit programmes. Rather than bridging the gap between low and high-income families, these educational spaces influenced existing social divisions and inequalities. Therefore, this study concluded that private schools in Nepal and Kenya function like businesses, which (un)intentionally promoted educational injustice 2 against children from low-income families. Consequently, authors recommend enactment of new educational policies and practices that promote culturally contextualized curricula in ECE programmes.

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