Abstract:

Based on the increasing focus on globalization in education, the cultivation of intercultural understanding and intercultural (communication) competence, especially for the preservice teachers who are responsible for educating young generation, has become increasingly important. To capture a comprehensive perspective about how intercultural competences have been fostered in preservice teachers during the past two decades, the present study presents a literature review of the available research. The review tackles literature published between 2005 and 2022, included in the following databases Science Direct, EBSCOhost ERIC, Academic Search Premier, Education Research Complete; enriched with the following Chinese language databases, Taiwan Citation Index - Humanities and Social Sciences, Airiti Library (CEPS Huayi online library) and CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure). An initial search resulted in a sample of 1426 English and Chinese research articles. After applying further steps following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews), 39 articles were retained. Literature was categorized and analyzed by focusing on concepts, and the nature of related instructional interventions.

The review results highlight the following aspects:
1. An overview of strategies to cultivate intercultural competence development; such as immersion, individual training programs, workshops, and school courses.
2. Intercultural competence teaching strategies or interventions build on information technology, critical incident events, domestic intercultural interaction, art and culture.
3. The evaluation methods to assess intercultural competence development rely on report evaluation, critical event evaluation, perception test, interview, and observation.

Finally, a list of related recommendations was developed that show challenges and priorities to foster the cultivation of intercultural competence development in preservice teachers.

Keywords:

Preservice teachers, intercultural competence, PRISMA-ScR, global education, teacher education.