As central actors in education, teachers play a key role in acting appropriately in the context of social and cultural differences, which are continuously socially constructed, by others as well as by themselves (Budde, 2012). A clear consensus has been reached that “beliefs matter” (Reusser et al., 2011, p.489) and that beliefs include affectively loaded and normative elements that influence strongly teachers’ perceptions, interpretations and judgements of specific situations (ib.). Even though the important function of beliefs is empirically well documented, teachers’ beliefs are rather scarcely investigated with regard to intercultural education.

Hardly any studies address the question what shapes teachers’ beliefs about intercultural education.  According to Bennett, beliefs are shaped differently depending on the level of intercultural sensitivity (Bennett, 1986, 2011). ‘Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity’ (DMIS) conceptualises the development of intercultural sensitivity in different stages defining five distinct kinds of experience that spread across the continuum from an ethnocentric to an ethnorelative worldview. At the ethnocentric part of the continuumthe differences are not perceived at all or are constructed in very vague ways (stage of denial) or  are perceived and expressed in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ (polarisation). The ‘minimisation’ is a transitional stage leading to the two more ethnorelative orientations and characterised by a worldview that avoids dealing with perceived cultural difference. At the ethnoraletive stage of ‘acceptance’ a person perceives one’s own culture as just one of many other equally complex worldviews and  in ‘adaptation‘ a worldview allows for flexible frame shifting in order to organise one’s own experience through the perspective of another culture (Bennett, 2004; Hammer, 2009).

The existing literature does not portray a conception of how teachers’ beliefs change or differ depending on the level of intercultural sensitivity, i.e. depending on the complexity of how individuals perceive schooling and teaching. This lack of knowledge regarding how more or less differentiated categories are reflected in different individuals’ beliefs shall be tackled in the proposed paper.

The ‘Law on the Foundations of the Education System’ was introduced in Serbia 2009 promoting equal rights and access to education for every child as well as quality and efficiency of education, equal access, and horizontal mobility throughout the education system (Macura-Milovanović, Gera & Kovačević, 2010). The report of the European Training Foundation identified teachers’ attitudes towards social and educational inclusion as a major issue for the entire Western Balkan region, and especially strong challenge for Serbia (Pantić, Closs&Ivošević, 2010, p. 64). In Serbian context the Roma minority students are faced with the specific obstacles to educational inclusion such as educators having low expectations regarding their learning achievement, prejudices and discrimination by school staff (Macura-Milovanović, Gera& Kovačević, 2010).

The proposed paper addresses the following research question: How are different levels of intercultural sensitivity reflected in perceiving specific situations in school? Given the specific Serbian situation with the strong emphasis on the inclusion of Roma additional research questions are: How are different levels of intercultural sensitivity reflected in perceiving specific situations in school if these situations involve Roma students? Is there a difference in the perception of specific school situations if they involve Roma students in comparison to situations that involve students of other ethnic minorities or the students from the majority population?

By answering these questions on an empirical basis, the proposed project translates the generic DMIS to the specific context of schooling and teaching and provides empirical evidence for moving ‘intercultural education’ to a need-based support of teachers also considering the specific context of Serbia.

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