From Preparation to Practice: Graduating Teachers’ Perceptions of Educating for Global Competence - Research Dataset

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To prepare students to navigate, act in and contribute to our culturally diverse, globally connected, rapidly changing society, classroom teachers are expected to both possess and pass on the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values of global competence. Yet, how Queensland initial teacher education (ITE) programs prepare pre-service teachers for this role, and how beginning teachers enact education for global competence in practice, remains poorly understood.

Addressing this gap, this study examines how Queensland pre-service primary teachers value, learn about, and ultimately educate for global competence as they transition from ITE into their first year of teaching. Using a two-phase longitudinal design, the research captures participants’ perspectives across this transition, providing insight into how intentions formed during ITE translate into classroom practice. Guided by Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), Phase One gathered survey and interview data during participants’ final year of ITE to investigate their understanding of global competence, their preparedness, and their intentions to educate for it. Phase Two followed the same cohort into their first year of teaching to explore how these intentions were enacted, including the challenges and opportunities encountered in school contexts.

The findings reveal that, although participants strongly valued global competence at graduation and intended to educate for it, their enactment was inconsistent. This was shaped, not by a lack of commitment, but by the conditions spanning Initial Teacher Education and entry into professional practice. In particular, global competence was often positioned implicitly within ITE, policy, and curriculum frameworks, limiting its visibility as an expected requirement of teaching. As a result, participants questioned whether educating for global competence was part of their professional role and perceived that areas that were more explicitly signalled and assessed were prioritised.

Through reflection, however, participants recognised they were enacting aspects of global competence in everyday practice, primarily through relational and values-based interactions. More explicit enactment, including critical engagement with global issues or action-oriented learning was less evident and appeared constrained by pedagogical understanding. These findings highlight the gap between intention and enactment, shaped by both individual awareness and broader educational contexts.

This study makes a significant contribution to the limited Australian evidence base on global competence by identifying key enabling and constraining factors in early-career teaching. It highlights the role of practical, context-rich examples in supporting pedagogical enactment, the importance of teacher awareness in recognising existing practice, the significance of everyday classroom interactions as a means for enactment and the need for more explicit signalling across ITE, policy and school contexts to position global competence as a recognised and expected component of teaching, with clear implications for teacher education, policymakers and school leadership.