Rapid changes in the ethnic and cultural background of school communities emphasize the need for preparing teachers for culturally diverse contexts (Santoro & Major, 2012). Specifically, teacher candidates need to assume knowledge about diversity. They are expected to be capable of infusing multicultural perspective into class with effective teaching skills by modelling a variety of instructional strategies (Prater & Devereaux, 2014). Whether teachers create open and safe classrooms where all students can express themselves sincerely is significant.

Due to the numbers of culturally diverse students being educated in public schools are growing immensely in the world, whether teacher candidates are ready to work and culturally competent to today’s diverse classrooms are needed to be investigate. Besides, pre-service teachers’ understanding related to difference and diversity is necessary to be acknowledged to get an idea about how well they are able to work with culturally diverse students. Since cultural competence for pre-service teachers refers to recognizing the differences among students and families from different cultural groups having different culture, language, race, ethnicity and other aspects of individual identity (Lindsey, Robins & Terrell, 2003; Trumbull & Pacheco, 2005), teachers are expected to anticipate their students’ cultural backgrounds that shaped their cultural values, beliefs and attitudes. Indeed, pre-service teachers having cultural competence exhibit awareness about privilege and discrimination in class (Liang & Zhang, 2009; Rubie-Davis, Hattie, & Hamilton, 2006).

Cultural competence is developed by some several factors such as openness to diversity, personal beliefs and intercultural experiences, self-awareness, educational background and commitment to social justice, as stated by Garmon (2004) and Valentin (2006). Commitment to social justice and equity are also other core indicators of cultural competence. More specifically, cultural competence is based on some factors such as believing that all students can learn regardless of their cultural background, self-reflection of pre-service teachers’ own beliefs while working with students of diverse background, setting high standards to all students including disadvantaged ones, and ameliorating prejudice and discrimination in class (Liang & Zhang, 2009; Terrill & Mark, 2000). That is, pre-service teachers need to acknowledge different cultures and believe in equity and fairness in order to accept and respect diversity (Weinstein, 2002). However, mentioned factors in the literature are by no means comprehensive in describing cultural competence. What the dimensions of cultural competence are, how they relate each other and how the various factors affect pre-service teachers to be culturally competent are insufficiently known. Thus, factors influencing cultural competence need to be specified by empirical support.

The purpose of this study was to describe and examine cultural competence of pre-service teachers in terms of their dispositions, knowledge and skills. Specifically, pre-service teachers’ beliefs about cultural diversity, their instructional behaviours towards diverse students, expectations of the students from different cultural background, perceptions regarding social justice and discrimination in class, and factors entailing their cultural competencies were investigated. How pre-service teachers value diversity, which factors develop cultural competence, how these teachers reflect their personal cultural values and beliefs, what the role of culture in learning is, whether they are capable of introducing multicultural perspective into class with effective teaching skills were intended to examine.

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