Power, Politeness and Liquid Persona

Abstract

This article explores pre-service English teachers’ self-reflections as participants in online intercultural exchange (VE). The aim is twofold: to examine participants’ perceptions of intercultural experiences in response to VE; and, to understand whether and how teacher trainees gain pedagogical insights through self-reflection situated in a cross-cultural online project. The study draws upon two iterations of exploratory research in a VE-project carried out with two cohorts of student groups. The first cycle involved students in Indonesia and Sweden, and the second cycle, a three-way collaboration, involved students in Argentina, Poland and Sweden. This article focuses on the Swedish side and examines empirical data incorporating e-diaries and interviews. A qualitative transcript analysis generated three intersecting themes: language and power, politeness, and participation through digital tools. Two theoretical constructs provide the analytical lens: persona (Hinrichsen & Coombs, 2014) and liquid interculturality (Dervin & Dirba, 2006). The findings challenge fixed notions of identity and interculturality, showing how participants engage in negotiations and fluid constructions of persona in response to perceived expectations of their interlocutors. The findings also indicate affordances of VE as a lingua franca contact zone in developing pre-service English teachers’ self-awareness and pedagogical competences.

Reading the world through virtual exchange: critical interculturality and glocal awareness in English teacher education

“…Over the past two decades, a wide range of studies have explored various aspects of training preservice teachers through online intercultural collaboration. VE studies in this area cover a spectrum of directions, such as pedagogical mentoring and teacher presence (Kurek & Müller-Hartmann, 2019;, student teachers' self-reflexivity (Glimäng, 2021;Lenkaitis, 2020), affordances of online collaboration for developing 21st century teacher competences (Grau & Turula, 2019;Lawrence & Spector-Cohen, 2018), intercultural awareness through VE (Eren, 2023;Sauro, 2016), digital literacies through VE in teacher education (Hauck & Kurek, 2017), VE and internationalization at home (Hilliker, 2020), and teacher' professional development as a result of carrying out VE projects in their own courses (O'Dowd & Dooly, 2022).…”

“…My first article draws on and contributes to this research conversation. By merging interculturality and digital literacies through two theoretical constructs-liquid interculturality (Dervin & Dirba, 2006) and persona (Hinrichsen & Coombs, 2013)-the article explores how pre-service teachers in Sweden reflect on their own identities and the learning experiences they gained from intercultural interactions in digital space through VE (Glimäng, 2021). This twofold theoretical lens offers a way to examine intercultural experiences gained from a virtual environment.…”

“…Developing a sense of belonging and a confident participant role. (p. 12) This concept is brought forth in my first study "Power, Politeness and Liquid Persona" (Glimäng, 2021). As I demonstrate in the article, persona encompasses several dimensions of awareness articulated in VE participants' reflections, such as recognizing (1) ways in which identities and relationships are formed in digital space; (2) ways of guarding and establishing reputation and voice in online interactions; and (3) ways of handling participation and collaboration with distant peers in synchronous and asynchronous communication.…”

“…Artikel I (Glimäng, 2021) undersöker lärarstudenters självreflektioner kring interkulturell och pedagogisk medvetenhet genom deltagande i VE. Deltagarna utgörs av två separata grupper av blivande Engelsklärare i Sverige som deltog i två olika VE-projekt, ett med studenter från ett lärosäte i Jakarta, Indonesien (VE1) och ett annat projekt tillsammans med studenter i Buenos Aires, Argentina och studenter i Poznan, Polen (VE2).…”