Teachers as frontline agents of integration: Finnish physical education students’ reflections on intercultural encounters

Abstract

The responsibilities of physical education teachers are responding to increased migration and wider political shifts in Europe. How might tertiary institutions prepare the next generation of PE teachers to address issues of social inclusion and cultural pluralism? This article critically reflects on an experiential learning intervention in Jyväskylä, Finland, in which trainee PE teachers facilitated kinaesthetic language-learning workshops for asylum seekers. We focus on how this intervention may have transformed the trainee PE teachers’ understandings and expectations of their emerging professional identities. We interpret the trainee PE teachers’ written accounts of the experience through contemporary theories of acculturation.