Journeys across differences: Pre-service teacher education students perceptions of pedagogy of discomfort in a digital storytelling module in South Africa

Abstract

Understanding and managing diverse classrooms is an important competency for teachers in South Africa today. Critics of the dominant approach to teaching on and with difference in pre-service teacher education argue that it mostly promotes de-contextualised celebrations of diverse cultures without addressing critical issues of power and social forces. One of the reasons that educators shy away from engaging with issues of power and privilege in the classroom is the fear of highly explosive emotions that might emerge. However, proponents of the „affective turn‟ (Berlant, 2008; Ahmed, 2004; Ahmed, 2010; Clough and Halley, 2007; Gregg and Seigworth, 2010) in the Social Sciences argue that it is important to work with the emotions that govern our classrooms for social transformation in students to happen.