ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, Norwegian society has undergone cultural and linguistic changes in light of events and processes informed by globalization and transnationalism. One important implication of such changes concerns Norwegian higher education, in which the need to prepare “globally-minded” students for critical citizenship has not only become a priority, but also continued to evolve. Teacher education programs must now be able to offer future teachers a kind of training that is aligned with and responsive to changes in society by including innovative, experiential, and critical education. Simultaneously, the “modernization” of higher and teacher education leads to much broader questions related to social justice around and within higher education in relation to the already-existing divide between societies. For example, issues surrounding knowledge production, mobility, and the English language have characterized much of present-day discussion about elitism, neoliberalism, and globalization in academic spaces. In this chapter, we present a case study of a course within a teacher education program in which virtual reality (VR) technology was implemented as part of the formal curriculum. We focus on the affordances of VR technology in meeting some of the pedagogical objectives of the course, including introducing teacher students to the complexities of teacher–parent–student interactions and fostering self-reflection in the students following an exercise facilitated by VR technology. We conceptually anchor our pedagogical implementation of VR technology in social interaction and acquisition of everyday/scientific concepts stemming from a Vygostkian sociocultural theory perspective. Yet, as we engage in this exercise as educators, we reflect on some of the ethical dilemmas of VR technology use in higher education from a broader, cross-cultural perspective. We ask ourselves whether and how VR technology in (teacher) education contributes to forming a new academic elite, therefore widening the global gap of access to technology among (teacher) students in higher education. While we do not attempt to offer solutions, we aim to reflect on a topic that speaks to us personally as educators teaching in an interconnected society and informs conversations about VR technology, education, and ethics internationally and within our own teacher education program.
