Session Information
10 SES 02 A, Research on Values, Beliefs and Understandings in Teacher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
The idea of multicultural education is becoming of great importance again.The goal of multicultural education is to foster a community of understanding out of a complex diversity.
Our research question is: how to organize the process of integration of the ideas of multicultural education into the system of pre-service teachers training effectively?
The main objectives of the study were the following: 1) to assess the pre-service teachers interest and confidence in including multicultural education in the secondary school curriculum; 2) to organize a pre-test so that to evaluate the level of future teachers knowledge in the multicultural education and the ways and methods of including ethnic content into the curriculum; 3) to analyze several approaches to assist future teachers with the integration of ethnic content into the curriculum and to include them into the process of pre-service training; 4) to organize a post-test so that to evaluate the level of future teachers knowledge in the ways and methods of including ethnic content into the curriculum.
Theoretical and conceptual framework lies in the sphere of three scientific branches: 1) multiculturalism; 2) studies in the field of pre-service teachers’ awareness of multicultural issues; 3) studies of the approaches to the ways and methods of integration of multicultural materials in the curriculum.
Banks (1990) offered four approaches to assist teachers with the integration of ethnic content into the curriculum:1)contributions approach; 2) additive approach; 3) transformation approach; 4) social action approach. All of these approaches are important and all of them were included into our special course of multicultural education for the future teachers.
James A. Banks's Dimensions of Multicultural Education were also widely used in our program for pre-service teacher training to conceptualize and develop courses and projects in multicultural education. Some of them are: content integration; an equity pedagogy; an empowering school culture and social structure.
The greater part of our attention was devoted to content integration. As far as we prepare future teachers of foreign languages we have designed a special implementation system, which included such parts as language material, topics, technology. It is important to mention that the topics were formulated by the students according to their own interests. For example, “Bringing up a biracial child”, “Is it important or not to belong to one and the same religion in one family?”, “Can youth subcultures be dangerous for the society?”
Then a selection of activities, exercises or experiential educational strategies were gathered and suggested for the future teachers so that they could utilize them in helping their students to learn the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to live well with others. Some of them are the following: administering surveys, questionnaires; setting up special events, films, concerts, making charitable donations; supporting peace movements, etc. In order to practice one of such activities students were invited to participate in the interdisciplinary Olympiad for schoolchildren, which was devoted to the Convention of Rights of the Child.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
1. Banks, James A. 2001a. Cultural Diversity and Education: Foundations, Curriculum and Teaching, 4th edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 2. Banks, James A., and Banks, Cherry A. McGee. 1995. "Equity Pedagogy: An Essential Component of Multicultural Education." Theory into Practice 34:152 - 158. 3. Banks, James A., and Banks, Cherry A. McGee, eds. 2001. Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 4. Banks, J. (1990). Approaches to multicultural curriculum reform. Social Studies Texan, 5(3), 43–45. 5. Banks, James A., et al. 2001. Diversity within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society. Seattle: Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington. 6. Cannella, G., & Reiff, J. (1994). Teacher preparation for diversity. Equity and Excellence in Education, 27(3), 28–33. 7. Cooney, M., & Akintunde, O. (1999, Winter). Confronting white privilege and the “Color Blind” paradigm in teacher education program. Multicultural Education, 7(2), 9–14. 8. Cruz-Janzen, M. (2000). From our readers: Preparing pre-service teacher candidates for leadership in equity. Equity and Excellence in Education, 33(1), 94–101. 9. Slavin, Robert E. 2001. "Cooperative Learning and Intergroup Relations." In Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education, ed. James A. Banks and Cherry A. McGee Banks. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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