The present study is part of a larger mixed-methods project conducted in Finland examining pre-service teachers’ mindsets and intercultural competences, with a specific focus on orientations toward teaching for diversity, equity and social justice. Racism and ethnocentric views persist in Finnish educational contexts, and minority students continue to face exclusion and achievement gaps (Alisaari et al., 2019; Loukola et al., 2025). Additionally, many teachers continue to hold low expectations for minority students and feel unprepared to meet their needs (Alisaari et al., 2022; Rissanen et al., 2015). While Finland’s educational systems aspire to equitable practice, everyday structural, institutional and attitudinal constraints continue to reproduce inequitable hierarchies. Addressing this requires structural reforms, as well as teacher education that can engage with the core beliefs that impact their orientations towards teaching for equity and diversity.

While the years pre-service teachers spend in teacher education are formative, they do not always lead to deep understandings of positionality in an increasingly globalized world or to changes in orientations toward diversity and equity (Timm et al., 2023). Willingness to promote equity and social justice has nevertheless been identified as a core component of teachers’ intercultural competence (Chang & Cochran-Smith, 2022).

Beliefs form the foundation of intercultural competence development, as they shape how educators engage with diversity (Rissanen et al., 2023a; Rissanen et al., 2023b). Social-psychological research on mindsets (implicit beliefs of malleability) offers a useful lens, as teacher mindsets have been linked to behavior toward students, expectations, stereotyping, and orientations toward equity and social justice (Rissanen & Kuusisto, 2023). Mindsets can be understood as core beliefs: the fundamental assumptions individuals hold about the malleability of human attributes that shape how they make sense of their social worlds (Molden et al., 2006). Individuals with a growth mindset believe that qualities and characteristics can develop, whereas those with a fixed mindset view them as largely stable (Dweck & Yeager, 2019).

Research demonstrates that fixed mindsets are associated with stronger stereotyping and more problematic intergroup relations, whereas growth mindsets are linked to greater openness to change, constructive intergroup orientations (Carr et al., 2012) and certain social justice positions (Madan et al., 2019). Current research suggests that mindset beliefs may operate as a key mechanism through which educators’ underlying assumptions about the malleability of traits, individuals and groups translate into intercultural and equity-related orientations (Rissanen & Kuusisto, 2023; Rissanen et al., 2023a).

However, the role of mindsets in intercultural competence development during teacher education remains underexplored. As classrooms across Europe and globally become increasingly diverse, teacher education is required to respond to these changes. Focusing on teachers’ core beliefs i.e mindsets can offer valuable insights into the development of intercultural competence and how such competence can be fostered in teacher education, particularly in efforts to foster equitable learning environments for all students.

This paper therefore presents a quantitative longitudinal investigation of mindsets and their role in intercultural competence development. Survey data was collected at the beginning of pre-service teachers’ studies in 2021 and again in 2024, to explore the development of these orientations over time and address the following research questions:

RQ1. What levels of mindsets, enthusiasm for teaching culturally diverse groups, and social justice beliefs do Finnish pre-service teachers report towards the end of their studies?

RQ2. To what extent are pre-service teachers’ mindsets associated with their enthusiasm for teaching culturally diverse groups and social justice beliefs?

RQ3. How do mindsets, enthusiasm for teaching culturally diverse groups, and social justice beliefs develop from the beginning to the end of teacher education, and do baseline mindsets predict changes in these orientations over time?

Building on prior research linking teachers’ mindsets to intercultural orientations and social justice beliefs (Rissanen & Kuusisto, 2023; Rissanen et al., 2023a), this study conceptualises a latent change score model (LCSM) in which pre-service teachers’ mindset beliefs form the foundation for their orientations toward diversity and equity. Participants were pre-service teachers from a Finnish university who completed an online survey at the beginning of their studies in 2021 (T1; N = 216) and again toward the end of their studies in 2024 (T2; N = 81). Informed consent was obtained from all participants. The study employed previously validated instruments translated into Finnish, whose validity in researching Finnish teachers has been established in earlier work (Rissanen & Kuusisto, 2023). Mindsets about intelligence were assessed using the 4-item Implicit Theories of Intelligence scale (ITI). Mindsets about malleability of persons was measured with the 4-item Implicit Theories of Persons scale (ITP) and mindsets regarding groups were assessed using the 4-item Implicit Theories of Groups scale (ITG). Orientation to social justice was measured using the 5-item Learning to Teach for Social Justice – Beliefs Scale (SJB) and enthusiasm for teaching culturally diverse groups was assessed using the 6-item Teacher Cultural Diversity Enthusiasm Scale (ENT). Longitudinal analyses were conducted using latent change score modeling (LCSM), which allows for the examination of individual change over time and the predictors of such change. Analyses proceeded in three stages. First, selective attrition between T1 and T2 was examined by comparing completers and dropouts on baseline variables and estimating logistic regression models predicting dropout. Second, longitudinal measurement invariance was tested for all constructs using confirmatory factor analysis, sequentially assessing configural, metric, and scalar invariance. Third, LCSMs were estimated to examine predictors of change in enthusiasm for teaching culturally diverse groups and social justice beliefs from T1 to T2. Change factors were regressed on baseline mindset beliefs and teacher education participation, and their covariance was estimated to assess coupled change. Missing data were handled with full information maximum likelihood (FIML), which uses all available data points to estimate parameters under the assumption of missing at random (MAR). All analyses were conducted using R (version 4.4.1) and Mplus.

Overall, the descriptive data suggests that participants’ mindset beliefs remained stable over time, with no substantial shifts. Mindsets and social justice beliefs remained relatively stable, while enthusiasm for teaching culturally diverse groups declined slightly. Descriptive statistics suggest that these beliefs do not easily shift during teacher education. However, the LCSM demonstrated acceptable fit to the data (χ²(6) = 6.75, p = .034, RMSEA = .005, CFI = .96, TLI = .96, SRMR = .06). Overall, the predictors explained a considerable share of the variance in the change processes, with R² = .42 for ΔSJB and R² = .57 for ΔENT. This suggests that changes in social justice beliefs and enthusiasm for teaching culturally diversse groups were meaningfully shaped by baseline mindsets and covariates. In other words, pre-service teachers’ initial mindset beliefs played a substantial role in shaping how their orientations toward equity and diversity developed over time. Regarding predictors, beliefs about the malleability of groups (ITG) emerged as a reliable positive predictor of change. Higher ITG at T1 predicted greater increases in both enthusiasm (ΔENT) (β = .17, p = .018) and social justice beliefs (ΔSJB) (β = .17, p = .010). The latent change factors were strongly correlated (r = .72, p < .001), suggesting that individuals who increased in enthusiasm for teaching culturally diverse groups also tended to increase in their social justice beliefs. Taken together, the findings indicate that while Finnish pre-service teachers’ mindsets, social justice beliefs, and enthusiasm for teaching culturally diverse groups remained largely stable throughout teacher education, mindsets, and specifically group malleability beliefs emerged as a unique predictor of development in enthusiasm and social justice orientations. This suggests that teacher education programmes aiming to prepare teachers to teach for equity and diversity may benefit from explicitly addressing beliefs about the malleability of groups, as these beliefs appear particularly relevant for fostering orientations supportive of intercultural competence.

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