According to Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education, multicultural perspectives shall be embedded in Taiwan’s education, ranging from curriculum development, textbook selection, curriculum design, to the development of teacher profession. In this sense, teachers are supposed to improve their multicultural literacy in terms of teacher profession. Since the complexities of discursive formulation in Taiwan made the discourses and texts of multicultural education, both in policy and academia, appear inconsistent, discrepant, and vague. How do Taiwanese teachers understand multiculturalism? What is the implication of multicultural education as perceived by them?

Teachers play a crucial role in multicultural education. The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) performed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) assesses the learning environment and teacher performance in schools. Teaching in multicultural settings, as an aspect of assessment in the TALIS, emphasizes that increased international migration and the integration of the global economy and labour market catalysed the facilitation of globalized and multicultural societies. Such a phenomenon and its associated challenges called people’s attention to the formulation of countermeasures (in academia and policy making) to respond to an increasingly multicultural learning environment. A Teachers’ Guide to TALIS 2018 (Volume I) published by the OECD summarizes teachers’ preparation for multicultural education in one sentence—“Teachers need to be prepared to handle diversity in all of its forms in their classes.”

In the TALIS, teaching in multicultural settings is covered by three items, namely inclusion in formal education, the need for professional development, and a sense of preparedness. Inclusion in formal education refers to the percentage of lower secondary teachers who have participated in formal education or training with respect to multicultural or multilingual education. Taiwan ranked 14th out of 49 countries with a percentage of 43.3%. The need for professional development is determined by the percentage of lower secondary teachers with a need for professional development for teaching in a multicultural or multilingual setting; Taiwan ranked the 18th lowest out of 49 countries with a percentage of 12.4%. A sense of preparedness is defined by the percentage of lower secondary teachers who feel fully prepared to teach in a multicultural or multilingual setting. For the item of sense of preparedness, United Arab Emirates scored the highest (79.9%), whereas France scored the lowest (8.2%); Taiwan ranked 16th out of 49 countries with a percentage of 36.9%. A remarkable phenomenon was observed when comparing the statistical data for the three items of Taiwan: even though Taiwanese teachers exhibited unsatisfying performance in inclusion in formal education (43.3%) and sense of preparedness (36.9%), they lacked the need for professional development (12.4%).

In consideration of the aforementioned results, I was concerned that most teachers are confident with their understanding of multiculturalism and therefore do not feel the need for further learning on the topic. Teachers’ understanding of multiculturalism in their educational locale affects their implementation of multicultural education as well as correlates with the thorough practice of educational reform. Accordingly, the following research questions were proposed: (1) how do Taiwanese teachers understand multiculturalism? (2) what is the implication of multicultural education as perceived by them?

Based on the concept proposed by McLaren (1994), Joe L. Kincheloe—author of Changing Multiculturalism—and Shirley R. Steinberg divided multiculturalism into five categories for further explanation. These five categories—conservative, liberal, pluralist, left-essentialist, and critical multiculturalism—are manifestations of different opinions, presumptions, attitudes, and actions toward differences. I perceived the implications of the five dimensions of multiculturalism on the basis of differences as five levels of understanding: (1) viewing differences from a negative point of view; (2) ignoring and expressing no interest in understanding differences; (3) identifying and celebrating differences; (4) identifying differences and regarding them as essential traits; and (5) viewing differences from a perspective without distinction and discrimination and endeavoring to change the unfair social structure. These five levels of understanding are not a hierarchy of knowledge but rather a classification for facilitating the understanding and analysis of how educators view and treat differences in teaching practices. To understand teachers’ interpretations of the implications of multicultural education, I employed purposive and snowball sampling to select participants from educational settings. Through interviews and informal observation and conversation, in-depth research was performed to explore the recreation of multicultural education in the educational setting. Saturation in qualitative research was reached by adopting a research period from May 2013 to January 2017 in schools. Sufficient data were obtained through interviews with 11 elementary and junior high school teachers from five schools across different regions of Taiwan. Several schools located on the outskirts of cities had relatively high proportions of new immigrant offspring. New immigrant offspring were also enrolled in indigenous schools. All interviews were conducted at the school in which the interviewee worked to better determine the school’s context and climate. Through informal observation and conversations, students’ conditions were investigated in depth. The interviewees recruited were responsible for teaching different subjects and differed in ethnicity, gender, age, and seniority. Six of the teachers had less than 10 years of experience in teaching, whereas the remaining interviewees had over 10 years of experience. Each interview lasted 1–3 hours and was audio recorded after consent was obtained from the interviewee. Some of the teachers even underwent a second interview. In addition to their interpretation and practices of multicultural education, the teachers talked about their opinions on relevant policies implemented in school.

The results could be compared with TALIS statistics concerning two dimensions of Teaching in Multicultural Settings (i.e., teachers’ need for professional development and sense of preparedness). Many teachers, consistent with most people’s imagination, intuitively equated multiculturalism with ethnic culture. When asked “What do you think multicultural education is?” most teachers mentioned terms such as “respect,” “inclusion,” and “understanding.” However, further and deeper conversations revealed that many of them fell into the trap of conservative multiculturalism and viewed differences negatively. To them, nonmainstream differences were considered insufficient, inferior, or defective. Interpreting differences from the perspective of liberal multiculturalism, other teachers believed that respect for students with multicultural backgrounds is shown by treating them as mainstream students without special mention or labeling, regardless of their inadequate understanding of or interest in relevant cultures. The interviewees deemed new immigrants to lack cultural stimulation, which is why they felt the focus of multicultural education should be on immigrant mothers and their offspring instead of educating mainstream society to accept different cultures. Fractures and inconsistencies were also observed in the discourse of the teachers. Some stressed “respect” while advocating conservative multiculturalism/ monoculturalism, whereas others wavered between conservative and liberal multiculturalism; this highlighted the debate among various multicultural discourses. During the interviews, critical multiculturalism was occasionally adopted to identify differences. Furthermore, younger teachers transcended ethnic cultures to encompass gender issues as well as employed critical multiculturalism to observe and describe schools’ multicultural education practices and problems. A certain degree of discrepancy was observed between Taiwanese teachers’ perception of multicultural education and their relevant expertise. This explains why most of the teachers did not feel the need for professional development in multicultural education. This attitude among teachers is precisely the challenge in Taiwan’s education system, which must be overcome.

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