When text, talk and thinking come together: Preservice teachers reading fiction in a course in intercultural education

In today's diverse educational settings, the incorporation of interdisciplinary approaches has become essential for teacher education. This study introduces an area of interdisciplinary research at the intersection of literary studies, intercultural education, and educational science. It reports on an exploratory study in which preservice teachers discussed selected novels that explore themes of diversity within an intercultural education course. The data include 16 group conversations involving 58 preservice teachers. The study highlights how these conversations navigated between discursive and literary orientations, underscoring the potential of using fiction in teacher education. The findings indicate that the preservice teachers engaged both cognitive and affective approaches in the group conversations. • Preservice teachers discuss novels in an intercultural education course. •Group conversations shift between discursive and literary orientations. •Preservice teachers using cognitive and affective approaches in group conversations. •Incorporating fiction can potentially add value to teacher education courses.