Pre-Service Teachers Explore Cultural Identity and Ideology through Picture Books

This paper draws on early data from a cross-Canada research project in which researchers at six Faculties of Education have been engaged in introducing picture books with multiple and diverse representations of Canadians to classes of pre-service teachers, inviting them to explore the pedagogical possibilities of the picture books and to discuss their cultural identities in focus groups and interviews. The paper reports the participants' expressed understandings of multiculturalism and their own relations and experiences with it, as well as their thoughts on classroom implementation of curriculum that incorporates picture books with multicultural and diversity themes. The paper also includes a case study of one Canadian province to further explore the wider context of pre-service teachers' understandings and ideologies by examining discourses in policy and practices in Newfoundland and Labrador.