Inclusive critical pedagogy: reclaiming democratic education amid neoliberal and populist hegemonies

People from many different cultures have been living together in the world. Accordingly, multiculturalism has brought some problems. Education has a distinctive place in the resolution of these problems. Within this context, it is important to explore social studies teachers’ attitudes towards democracy and multicultural education, which is a significant element of education. The purpose of this study was to reveal social studies teachers’ attitudes towards democracy and multicultural education. In this survey and causal-comparative study, participants were composed of 332 social studies teachers. The data were collected using the “Democracy and Multicultural Education Attitude Scale”, which was developed by Toraman et al. (2015). The analyses involved Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis H tests, frequency (f), percentage (%), and mean scores (X̅). The results revealed that social studies teachers’ attitudes towards democracy and multicultural education were positive. Teachers’ attitudes were positive in the dimension of prejudiced attitude towards multicultural education while they obtained more positive scores in the dimensions of attitude towards multicultural education, attitude towards democracy education, attitude towards democracy, and attitude towards cultural differences. Social studies teachers’ overall attitudes did not differ significantly by their years of experience, educational level, branch, gender, and geographical region of their schools. There were significant differences in teachers’ scores obtained from dimensions of attitude towards democracy education, attitude towards democracy, and attitude towards cultural differences in terms of educational level in favor of teachers with bachelor’s degrees. On the other hand, teachers with 1-5 years of experience had significantly higher scores from the dimension of prejudiced attitude towards multicultural education.

It is a fact that learning to teach is basically a social and practical activity that is supported and informed by theoretical reflections. Field experience and realities should be the core component of any teacher preparation program. That is why, most of the teacher education programs based on theory into practice model. The main aim of this research is not to reject this model, but to sketch out an alternative way of teacher preparation that is based upon teacher’s own context and socio cultural settings or in other words teacher preparation must be organized Hermeneutically. The hermeneutical approach of Hans-Georg Gadamer, is not only of philosophical importance but contains practical implications also. The concepts of understanding, interpretation and application are the core concepts of teacher preparation. In contrast to adopting an entire theory as the guiding principle to the whole content and practice of teacher preparation courses, this research argue for the focus to be on inculcating a hermeneutic disposition in all teachers preparation programs and courses. Hermeneutics is basic to human interaction, especially in dealing with student-teachers belongs to diverse socio-cultural settings or multicultural environment. The main argument or focus of this research is that it is necessary that the teacher preparation programs must be consider the problem of multiculturalism (inter and intra cultural). Multicultural Teacher Preparation (MTP) or hermeneutical mode of teacher preparation plays an important role in the preparation of teachers. It will be helpful for teachers to develop a deep level understanding of students needs belongs to various backgrounds and perspectives, not through applying a predetermined model of classroom activities, but through helping future teachers to recognize their own prejudices and how these help to determine their understandings of diversity in their future classrooms. Developing a hermeneutic disposition in teachers training facilitates and enrich experience of future teachers. A mixed method design was used to conduct the study.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine the levels of foundation‐year courses at the only public, four‐year institution of higher education in Qatar.Design/methodology/approachA basic crossed design was used to assess the degree to which the number and kind of foundation courses taken related to student enrollment, graduation, academic dismissal and academic performance. A chi‐square statistical analysis, Kruskal‐Wallis analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a repeated measure (MANOVA) were used to address the research questions.FindingsThe results of this study demonstrate that those students who are enrolled in an English foundation course and take at least one or more foundation course are more likely to remain enrolled in the university. In contrast, those students who enroll in more than one mathematics foundation course are more likely to be academically dismissed than to remain at this university. Students who pass through preparatory courses in English have higher scores in both their first and second post‐foundation English courses than those who do not participate in the program. In contrast, students who take foundation courses in mathematics were less likely to do well in post‐foundation courses than those who had not taken foundation courses. Those students who had taken an English foundation course were more likely to fail a post‐foundation course at the university level than to pass such a course. Those students who had taken a mathematic foundation course were just as likely to fail as those students who had not taken one. Generally, those students who went through English and mathematics foundation courses were more likely to perform at a significantly higher level and achieve a higher grade point average than those students who did not complete the preparatory program.Originality/valueA significant role of the preparatory program is to bring students to an academic level that allows them to continue on to regular university programs. This paper is significant because it assesses the worth and benefits of a preparatory program in a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country, which include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This chapter starts by focusing on the multicultural education needs in Turkey and tries to define and discuss these needs. Then the features of multicultural science education are described using examples from practices given in the literature. In this context, multicultural science education is discussed under the headings of learning strategies, learning opportunities, and cooperative learning, followed by presenting examples of multicultural science education. As a result, the framework of multicultural science education presented in this chapter aims to shed light on multicultural education practices in Turkey and other countries around the world.

LGBTQ self-efficacy in the social studies

Globally-minded teachers often beget globally-minded students. The same relationship seems to hold true for multiculturalism; teachers who are committed to multiculturalism often nudge students toward the same commitment. Global citizenship and multicultural education share a strong bond. Yet, in the field of social studies teacher preparation, the bond between global competencies and multiculturalism often seems permeable and quite fragile. In the context of multicultural education in the United States, teachers engage with issues of privilege, power, and oppression but with a heavy US-centric focus. The article contends that the predominant United States’ focus of multiculturalism limits the opportunities to engage the global: global competencies, global voices, and global citizenship. The article seeks to wed multiculturalism and global education. It does so by introducing and explaining Critical Cosmopolitan Theory (Author, 2013), which is a theoretical framework to guide the preparation of globally competent and culturally responsive teacher candidates. Utilizing findings from an artifact analysis study of teacher candidates (n=51), the article discusses ways to assist teacher candidates in their development of becoming Critically Cosmopolitan citizens who embrace social justice by being informed by the global and multicultural.

This study aims at investigating the relevance among three factors: preservice English teachers' preparation courses, their views about teaching and their real teaching behaviors. This is a case study focusing on three preservice teachers of English in Egypt. Data was collected through three tools: an observation sheet, a semi-structured interview and a focus group. Results of the study revealed that there is a gap between what preservice English teachers learn in their preparation courses, their views about effective teaching and their real behaviors in class. The reasons which the participants gave for not applying what they have learned theoretically include: insufficient preservice training, students' low level, insufficient class time, students' resistance of changing the way they are used to learn, insufficiency of equipment in schools, students' preference of using the native language in learning, and in one case the teacher herself preferred the traditional grammar translation method. The study recommends early coordination between teacher preparation institutions and schools. The study recommends the incorporation of senior teachers in teacher preparation programs to try to breach the theory-practice gap. The study also recommends that teacher educators should analyze the given causes of the theory-practice gap and develop the English teachers' preparation courses in accordance.

Holistic Framework for Student-Athletes' Education Case Study: Aspire Academy Khaled A. Hussein, PhD Aspire Academy, Qatar Jassim Al Jaber, MSc Aspire Academy, Qatar Sonia Masip, MSc Aspire Academy, Qatar Abstract Many academic institutions are concerned with the academic performance of their registered students or prospective joiners. Accordingly, organizations like SAT and ACT define college readiness standards and identify key skills required to continue postsecondary education (ACT,2004). For example, ACT frequently publishes cut-scores and benchmarks for grades 8-12 students, which define the minimum requirements for college readiness. Such efforts and standardization gained national recognition and consideration by policy makers, universities around the world, education reformers and other education stakeholders. In its Research Report Series, ACT summarized the findings of the last 50 years research on education and workplace readiness into four domains of education and career readiness. These four domains are: Core academic skills, Cross-cutting capabilities, Behavioral skills, and Education and career navigation skills (ACT, 2015). In this context, K-12 schools started focusing on quality education and national or international recognition or accreditation of their systems in order to guarantee meeting the required learning standards for their graduates, and accordingly develop better learning outcomes. It is important for SAs to get ready for future education and career development because they usually continue their education to the next level or switch to professional athletics. So, in this research, an integrated and holistic picture of education readiness is studied. This picture crystalizes the required knowledge and skills for Student-Athletes (SAs) to continue their future studies and career development. These knowledge and skills are derived based on the ACT framework (Mattern et al, 2014) for education and career readiness. Although there are many models and frameworks for education readiness and success such as Campbell's (1990) eight-factor model and Oswald et al (2004) twelve-factor model of academic performance, ACT's framework makes high sense for studying education and career success for SAs because of its expansion of readiness to include readiness to proceed to the next level education and readiness to enter into the workforce. In this research, a holistic framework is developed based on the findings from the readiness framework defined by ACT. It includes a group of constructs that ensure readiness for further education or career development. These constructs are classified into two groups: the first for education readiness and the second for career readiness with a focus on sports-related career paths. Both groups are developed in order to satisfy the SAs' learning needs, develop their cognitive abilities, respond to their learning styles, develop a responsive educational system that fits their blended learning modalities, enhance their characters, foster the required cross-cutting capabilities and behavioral skills, assess their performance through a successful and meaningful evaluation system, and align the taught standards with recognized national and international curriculum. Objectives: To determine the core academic skills required for SAs.To determine the cross-cutting capabilities for SAs.To determine the behavioral skills that are required for SAs.To determine the education and career navigation skills required for SAs. About the case study institution Aspire Academy is located in Doha, Qatar. Since established in 2004, Aspire Academy»s main objective is to strengthen the “sporting while educating” culture in Qatar, as well as internationally, as exemplified in their «Aspire Football Dreams» project. Aspire Academy provides education to student-athletes (SAs) who combine education and sport in their daily timetable. Aspire Academy offers education for grade 7 to grade 12 SAs who are nominated based on their talent and sporting skills. SAs attend the academy between 6 am to 7 pm every weekday for academic and sports education. Some SAs attend grades 7 to 9 in the academy then move to some sports clubs around Europe to train the whole year as professional athletes, which makes it more challenging to facilitate learning for them. The total number of currently enrolled full-time student-athletes is 289. A total of 49 athletes have joined European sports clubs including Real Madrid, Cultural and Villa-Real in Spain, and Eupen in Belgium. The number of Olympic sports that Aspire Academy provides, in a developmental support to Qatar sports federations, is eight including Football, Fencing, Golf, Athletics, Shooting, Swimming, Tennis and Squash. SAs face the challenge of not being fully engaged in their learning due to time limitations and effort expectancy. Oblinger and Oblinger (2006) point to a different kind of student: A non-traditional student who simultaneously works and studies. This kind of student is increasingly part of Aspire's educational landscape.

Purpose: This study examines pre-service teachers’ perceptions and their professional preparation levels for multicultural education.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: In accordance with the research problems, this study was conducted using a mixed method research and a partial mixed sequential and equal status design. In the quantitative part, 381 pre-service teachers were surveyed using the Multicultural Perception Scale (MPC) to assess their perspectives on multicultural education. In the qualitative part, 20 pre-service teachers were interviewed individually to determine their levels of professional preparation for multicultural education.
 Findings: The quantitative findings of the study showed that pre-service teachers have a moderate level of perception their professional preparation levels for multicultural education. Pre-service teachers enrolled in the Primary Education program have a higher perception of multicultural education than pre-service teachers enrolled in other teacher education programs. Furthermore, there is no significant difference between grades. On the other hand, it appears that male pre-service teachers have significantly lower perceptions of multicultural education than female pre-service teachers. Pre-service teachers are observed to emphasize the terms "diversity, interaction, and togetherness" when defining multicultural education, according to the qualitative findings of this study. In addition, they emphasized the interactions between pre-service teachers and international students, the program's course content, and extracurricular activities in light of the findings regarding the teacher education program's contribution to and opportunities for enhancing the levels of professional preparation for multicultural education. Examining the recommendations of pre-service teachers for teacher education, it is evident that more opportunities for extracurricular activities, school experience, and observation are recommended. Another recommendation highlighted is the addition of a multicultural education course to the teacher education program.
 Highlights: According to the findings, multicultural education must be more thoroughly integrated into teacher education programs. It is anticipated that the study's findings will contribute to future studies of curriculum development and research on multicultural education conducted by those involved in teacher education at the national and international levels.

How can civic education in a liberal democracy give social diversity its due? Two complementary concerns have informed a lot of liberal thinking on this subject. Liberals like John Stuart Mill worry that "the plea of liberty" by parents not block "the fulfillment by the State of its duties" to children. They also worry that civic education not be conceived or conducted in such a way as to stifle "diversity in opinions and modes of conduct."' Some prominent contemporary theorists add a new and interesting twist to these common--concerns. They criticize liberals like Mill and Kant for contributing to one of the central problems, the stifling of social diversity, that they are trying to resolve.2 The comprehensive liberal aim of educating children not only for citizenship but also for individuality or autonomy, these political liberals argue, does not leave enough room for social diversity. Would a civic educational program consistent with political liberalism accommodate significantly more social diversity than one guided by comprehensive liberalism?3 Political liberals claim that it would, and some recommend political liberalism to us largely on this basis. This article shows that political liberalism need not, and often does not, accommodate more social diversity through its civic educational program than comprehensive liberalism. Section I examines the defining difference between political and comprehensive liberalism and suggests why we might expect to find a significant difference in the accommodation of social diversity by political and comprehensive liberalism through civic education.

The need to infuse multicultural education (ME) across teacher preparation programmes is well documented by research, yet institutions are at very different stages in this endeavour. While most programmes demonstrate a segregated approach to ME, confining diversity to specialty courses, ME programme infusion places diversity, equity and social justice at a programme's centre. This study presents triumphs and challenges faculty faced in integrating ME across one teacher preparation programme. Via one academic year of observations, interviews and document analyses, this study was informed by Cochran-Smith, Davis and Fries’ 12 factors for multicultural teacher preparation, Gay's descriptors for ME programme infusion and Melnick and Zeichner's promising programme practices for preparing teacher candidates effectively to teach in diverse twenty-first century classrooms. Findings show that the faculty members approached ME infusion by establishing a vision in support of diversity and ME and creating professional learning communities offering a safe context for critical reflection on attitudes and pedagogies supporting diverse populations. However, a lack of connection between the ME and the core programme courses, and discrepancies among participant perspectives, demonstrated the need for more extensive ME programme infusion. Implications for practitioners, policymakers and researchers are given.

Purpose This paper aims to examine teachers’ perspectives on their understandings of multicultural education (MCE) and critical race theory (CRT) in today’s classrooms, exploring the challenges and opportunities they face in fostering an inclusive educational environment. This study highlights the political and systemic barriers, hindering these practices and the resilience of educators committed to advancing equity. Design/methodology/approach The authors used ethnographic design and conducted two focus groups with educators, using holistic coding to identify key themes and distinctions between MCE and CRT. This study explores the impact of political and administrative pressures, teacher preparation and the difficulties of navigating a politically charged climate around race and inclusivity. Findings Teachers acknowledged the value of MCE and CRT in addressing systemic inequities but cited challenges such as insufficient teacher training, lack of administrative support and political backlash. Despite these obstacles, they demonstrated a strong commitment to creating safe, inclusive spaces for students and advocated for systemic change. Research limitations/implications The findings of this study are constrained by its small sample size, as only nine educators participated across two focus groups, limiting the generalizability of the results. In addition, the study’s geographic focus on Ohio educators may not fully capture the broader national perspectives on MCE and CRT. Despite these limitations, the research provides valuable insights into how political and administrative pressures shape educators’ understandings of diversity, equity and inclusion concepts. Future studies could expand the sample size and include educators from more diverse regions to build on these findings and enhance their applicability. Practical implications This paper offers recommendations for improving teacher preparation and support systems, emphasizing the need for policies that foster inclusive education. It calls for holistic teacher training that equips educators with the tools to integrate MCE and CRT into their classrooms effectively. Social implications This paper highlights the importance of supporting educators in fostering inclusive classrooms and addressing systemic inequities. It emphasizes how political and administrative pressures affect teachers’ abilities to engage in critical conversations about race and inclusivity. The findings call for systemic changes to teacher preparation programs and policies that equip educators to integrate MCE and CRT effectively, promoting social justice through education. Originality/value This research contributes to the discourse on inclusive education by providing insights into the real-world challenges educators face in implementing MCE and CRT, while also offering recommendations for advancing these frameworks in schools.

Moving teacher preparation programs into professional development schools has begun to change teacher education in the United States (Goodlad, 1993; Winitski, Stoddard, & O'Keefe, 1992). Conventional teacher preparation programs introduce prospective teachers to current theory and practice in a series of campus-based courses, followed by an intensive experience in practice teaching. In contrast, teacher preparation courses in a professional development school WDS) offer new and veteran teachers opportunities to test theoretical constructs from preparatory classes against the daily press of work with students (Stallings, 1991). Moving a teacher preparation program from a university campus to public schools should infuse the schools with a steady flow of new ideas, challenging both inservice and preservice teachers to adapt their practice to improve student learning. Whether teacher education programs follow the precepts of the Holmes Group (1991), Glickman, Hayes, and Hensley (1992), or Goodlad (1993), the purpose of collaboration in a professional development school is to improve practice among both new and seasoned teachers, lending force and coherence to local school improvement plans and creating a center for the development of knowledge for the teaching profession. In a Vermont professional development school, teacher candidates must learn to adapt theoretically promising techniques to always complex and often deeply entrenched local conditions. Sponsoring teachers must learn to integrate techniques brought to their classrooms by novices who understand only partially how their classrooms work. A professional development school creates in which universities and schools share in the preparation new teachers and where mutual renewal is a shared goal (Godlad, 1993). Simply transplanting university courses to the schools does little to improve practice in either setting. To support reform, teacher education faculty must redesign their courses to support ongoing experimentation in a setting that becomes inherently unstable as change takes hold. In this article, we describe the evolution of teacher preparation courses in six secondary schools in Vermont that are integrating teacher preparation programs with their school development plans. The Evolution of Vermont's Professional Development Schools Professional development schools in Vermont have evolved gradually from a commitment shared by schools and the university to support the growth of the teaching profession. Over 10 years of PDS development at the secondary level, schools and the university have agreed on a collaborative approach to change that places high value on improved teaching but allows each school set its own agenda. Local conditions vary, but the central principle remains the same: If teachers are consistently supported over time in a way that will allow them to develop and grow as they teach, they will gradually professionalize themselves (Leo-Nyquist, 1990, p. 1). Three recent adaptations of the preexisting campus-based program have allowed teacher preparation courses conducted in professional development schools to support school and professional renewal simultaneously: * Integrated Practica: Each secondary education course includes a practicum in which interns test educational theory in practice and in which continuous testing forces personal theories to evolve. * Results Orientation: Each course requires students to make something happen in the life of the school, to use what they are learning to make a difference among students and teachers. * Professional Portfolios: Each course requires students to assemble evidence that they can contribute to student learning and school change (Dollase, 1996). Teaching interns must demonstrate mastery of learning from the teacher preparation curriculum in a school with its own unique character and evolving sense of purpose. While school-based interns are completing their first teaching licensure requirements, teams of professional teachers in a PDS are involved in a school development course, conducting research over a full school year in support of school improvement (Clarke et al. …

In the past several decades, educational researchers have asserted that multicultural/multilingual education is a phenomenon which certainly has come into prominence in the world of education and most schools are becoming increasingly diverse; a significant role of teacher preparation programs is to prepare its teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to help all students learn. However, multicultural education and bilingual education is still a controversial issue in Turkey. The education system has not adapted to meet the needs of our increasing multiracial and multicultural populations, and research continues to be limited. Thus, both multicultural education and bilingual education in Turkey should be supporting students to show tolerance towards those with backgrounds different from their own and also focusing on the protection of each student’s cultural heritage and their mother tongue language. Thus, the purpose of the study is to investigate teachers’, students’, and academicians’ perceptions on multicultural and bilingual education, specifically, based on mother tongue education in Turkey. This qualitative research, which aims to emphasize the need of multicultural education in Turkey and the need of Kurdish language instruction in Turkey’s education systems, was conducted with 80 participants. In this study, researcher emailed 10 “open-ended questions” to participants to identify the need of multicultural and bilingual education based on mother tongue education in Turkey. Content analysis methods were utilized to analyze, interpret and assess the responses of participants to the open-ended questions. The findings of the study indicate that Turkey needs to immediately reform the education of native language and develop programs and special approaches that help improve the language deficiency of students who speak Kurdish as a mother tongue or have a limited understanding of Kurdish. This study also finds that the Turkish government should develop a multicultural curriculum that should help students, faculty, and staff to become advocates for multicultural awareness. This awareness informs the ways in which we prepare teachers, counselors, and administrators to serve all students.

This chapter will discuss a teacher educator’s experience teaching Multiculturalism, a required foundational course for preservice teachers (PSTs), and Literacy Methods, a required final-year course for PSTs during the 6 weeks preceding their student teaching, throughout the highly politicized years of 2015–2018. As a result of coincidental timing, many PSTs enrolled in the final Literacy Methods course were the same PSTs the author had previously worked with in the foundational Multiculturalism course. Through the use of narrative inquiry, the author had the opportunity to better understand why PSTs felt inadequately prepared to implement neoteric, justice-oriented pedagogy as emerging teacher candidates, given the prolonged and problematic gap between their enrollments in each course. Based on PSTs’ narratives surrounding inadequate practical application opportunities to employ equity-focused pedagogy throughout their teacher preparation, this chapter will discuss strategies for enhancing coursework to better prepare emerging teacher candidates to implement critical, culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy across the content areas.