Online dialogical cycles and digital culture: Complexity in pre-service and in-service teacher education

Abstract

This study examines how pre-service and in-service teacher educators from different cultural contexts construct meanings of digital cultures and their implications for teacher education and educational practices.  The research was conducted through online dialogical cycles involving 28 participants from universities in Brazil, Canada, England, and South Africa. Grounded in a qualitative and post-critical framework, the study draws on Freirean dialogue, complexity theory, and action research principles.  Data were generated through oral and written dialogical cycles held over four months and analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings reveal both convergences and tensions in participants’ perspectives, particularly regarding diversity of knowledge and collaboration, pedagogical sensitivity and affect, humanization and inclusion in digital contexts, and critical engagement with discourses of innovation.  The results indicate that digital cultures cannot be approached from a purely instrumental perspective, but require critical, relational, and dialogical forms of engagement. The study contributes to the field of digital teacher education by conceptualizing online dialogical cycles as collaborative spaces that challenge instrumental approaches to technology and inform more critical, relational, and dialogic teacher education practices.