Preservice Teachers' Perspectives About Student Diversity in the Classoroms
Research aim, question and theoretical framework
Process of globalization and increased mobility of people within and across nation-states have led to societies that are more diverse today (Banks, 2012). The changing demographic of societies has resulted in diverse learner groups in schools (Florian, & Pantić, 2017). Diversity is a pressing issue that presents both challenges and opportunities in education. Darling-Hammond (2011) has stated that, “dealing with diversity is one of the central challenges of twenty-first-century education” (p.ix). In addition, the diversification of student population in schools has challenged teachers’ educational practices and placed additional demands upon teachers requiring them, “to facilitate the learning and participation of all pupils” (Humphrey et al., 2006, p.305).
Like other European countries, Norway has continued to develop as a diverse nation with significantly increasing levels of immigrants lately. The changing demographic of Norwegian society has altered composition of student population in schools with increased heterogeneity among students (Kulbrandstad, 2018; Rosnes, & Rossland, 2018; Krulatz, Steen-Olsen, & Torgersen, 2018). Such changes have moved issues related to education and diversity, “from the periphery to the centre of educational research” (Engen et al., 2018, p.3) and, “the need to address issues of diversity in education has become more important than ever” (Burner, Nodeland, & Aamass, 2018, p.3).
Against this backdrop, there is a growing need for understanding and theorizing notion of diversity as important part of education of prospective teachers (Ball, & Tyson, 2011) in order to equip them for their work in diverse classrooms. It is therefore important to study about how preservice teachers understand and frame notion of diversity and to what extent the initial teacher education contributes to prepare these teachers for their work with diverse student groups in the classrooms.
The present study aims to explore Norwegian preservice teachers’ perspectives about diversity in relation to their preparedness for working in diverse classroom settings. To achieve the aim of exploring what and how the preservice teachers talk when framing notion of diversity, the following research question was posed: how do the preservice teachers talk about student diversity?
Conceptual framework
To specify concept of diversity in this study, Paine’s (1990) framework for diversity is used. Paine has differentiated between individual, categorical, contextual, and pedagogical orientations towards diversity, which is employed in the analysis. This is further related to the situation of prospective teachers, by drawing on Ball and Tyson (2011) who have emphasized that prospective teachers should be, “prepared with the attitudes, skills, knowledge, and dispositions necessary to become excellent teachers for students from racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds that differ from their own” (p.414). In order to achieve this, teacher preparation programmes need to foster diversity related dispositions of prospective teachers so that they can address both needs and challenges associated with diversity, which is not easy.
Darling-Hammond (2011) has stated that, “it is impossible to prepare tomorrow’s teachers to succeed with allof students they will meet without exploring how both students’ and teachers’ learning experiences are influenced by their home languages, cultures, and contexts”(p.ix). In line with darling-Hammond Gay (2010) states that teaching becomes most effective when students’ prior experiences, their community settings, cultural and other backgrounds including ethnic identities of teachers and learners are included in its implementation.
The findings will be discussed in light of the theoretical concepts presented above along with Paine’s framework towards diversity.