“Like flying birds”: raising candidate teachers’ intercultural competence of refugee identity

Abstract

The education of candidate teachers in the acquisition of intercultural competence has been underlined by researchers for many decades. Many candidate and in-service teacher training programmes have been enriched with courses and seminars focusing on the development of intercultural competence. This article describes the contribution of a university course to the development of intercultural competence of candidate teachers. The communication and cultural exchange between student teachers and young refugees which took place during the course, seem to lead to the transformation of students' negative stereotypical perceptions on refugee identity.