Abstract
This chapter identifies how geographical imaginaries play into student teachers’ decision
making of study and work abroad destinations, and explores how these predominantly
collective, historic imaginaries are rooted in complex power relations, global hierarchies
and postcolonialism. Drawing on two sets of data combining incoming and outgoing
student mobility to and from Denmark and through the use of a mapping method, we
explore student teachers’ geographical imaginaries, enclosing their preferences and
perceptions of different places. This allows us to analyse students’ (implicit) geospatial
associations and perceptions of where ‘good’ education and ‘proper’ knowledge come from.
Exploring geographical imaginaries of international student teachers becomes of specific
importance and interest as our findings highlight global power relations between the
providers of ideas, knowledge and practices and the implementers in specific educational
contexts. Hence, this chapter serves as a jumping-off point for further critical reflection
on how higher education internationalisation and the internationalisation of teacher
training (re-)produce unequal, historically shaped perceptions and an uneven spread of
mobilised knowledge.