Over the last decade, the innovation of intercultural receptiveness in education systems across Europe focused on the guiding idea that, with increasing diversity in society, teachers need to be prepared to teach in culturally and linguistically heterogeneous schools. In this context, the recruitment of minority teachers and pre-service teachers has been discussed in education policy as one strategy to enhance social justice in the system and provide all children with equal opportunities.

According to the international state of research, the expectations placed on the recruitment of teachers with migration backgrounds seem to be justified (Strasser & Steber 2010, 117). Yet, Mantel & Leutwyler (2013, 234) point out that the picture research has given us so far is diverse; there are various indications for “specific potentials” dealing with diversity due to migration. Whereas most research activities over the last twenty years have concentrated on teachers, intercultural research over the past five years has started to address pre-service teachers from immigrant families at the university. Their professional beliefs, their ascribed role in school, and their motivation, resources, and requirements of support have been focus topics. In our ECER 2013 symposium, we therefore presented emerging research in the specific field of “pre-service teachers from immigrant families” in three German-speaking countries, and we introduced initial results from a comprehensive survey of pre-service teachers at University St.Gallen, Switzerland, as well as mechanisms of exclusion at the university and ways to use biographical resources to develop professional competencies in the teacher education/training context.

The aim of the proposed symposium is to widen this view further and to explore the topic from different perspectives and with different protagonists: pre-service teachers, pupils and their perspective on minority teachers, and multilingual teachers’ attitudes in monolingual vs. multilingual education systems (Canada and Greece).

All projects use different research methods (quantitative and qualitative) to deal with questions about “specific potentials” and hidden competencies of minority teachers and pre-service teachers. Edelmann and Beck present the results of a mixed-methods project about pre-service teachers in order to enhance teacher education so that students’ migration-based diversity can be recognised as a resource in their education towards becoming teachers (Switzerland). Strasser und Warburg contribute the pupils’ perspectives through participant observations and group discussions: Do the pupils perceive minority teachers as extraordinary teachers? Do they notice specific competencies? Do other factors of differentiation in the school context, such as “doing teacher,” “doing pupil,” age, and sex, play a more significant role from the pupils’ points of view (Germany)? The third paper contrasts teachers’ attitudes about multilingualism in Greece and Canada. The international comparison of (multilingual) teachers who were socialised in monolingual vs. multilingual education systems allows Panagiotopoulou and Rosen to question the optimistic notion that (linguistic) minority teachers automatically have “specific competencies” in handling multilingualism professionally. The three papers also have in common that they present most recent research results. The process of data gathering began in 2013.

References

Strasser, J. & Steber, C. (2010). Lehrerinnen und Lehrer mit Migrationshintergrund. Eine empirische Reflexion einer bildungspolitischen Forderung. In J. Hagedorn et al. (eds.), Ethnizität, Geschlecht, Familie und Schule. Heterogenität als erziehungswissenschaftliche Herausforderung (pp. 97–126). Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.

Mantel, C. & Leutwyler, B. (2013). Lehrpersonen mit Migrationshintergrund: Eine kritische Synthese der Literatur. In Beiträge zur Lehrerbildung (pp. 234–247). 31 (2).