Responding to Policies that Involve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students and Content: An International Pre-Service Teacher’s Experience

Abstract

Using auto-ethnography, I write my story as Mexican international student in the role of pre-service teacher in Australia. I focus on exploring my socio-political status and its relationship to assuming a position to respond to education policies about working with students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, and teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content. I argue that assuming a position to respond to these policies as international pre-service teacher is overlapped with a multi-layered process in which epistemological deliberation occur as a consequence of being in a state of constant position shifting. Anzaldúa’s Coyolxauqui imperative and Martin’s Relatedness theory are used to analyse the structural conditions that framed the epistemological challenges that I encountered. I suggest a process to support international pre-service teachers who are ethnic minorities to assume a position in relation to these policies. Recommendations for potential further research are outlined.