Teacher Trainees’ Preconceptions of Intercultural Education in the Romanian Educational Landscape

Abstract

1 IntroductionTeachers represent the crucial factor in determining quality in schools, and students' subsequent emotional, professional and social development, therefore, teachers' professional development is acquiring an ever increasing importance in all educational systems and in directing national policies. The process of teachers' professional development is carried out along a continuum, starting with initial teacher training and ending with retirement from the profession. In the first stage, that of initial teacher training, would-be teachers get acquainted with specialised knowledge and competences pertaining to and didactics. In Romania, this stage still coincides with the psycho-pedagogic modules I and II, concurrent with the bachelor and MA degree studies (Popescu & Iordachescu 2013).Unfortunately, these two modules contain no courses in intercultural education, which affects trainees' ability to cope with the multifariousness of problems that they might encounter as beginning teachers, especially if they set out in their career in a remote village, with mixed-ability and mixed-age groups of students, most of them of different ethnic or race backgrounds (Hungarians, Roma, etc.) In a society still dominated by prejudice of all kinds (race, sex, even religion), the young teacher finds himself in an embarrassment of choice over his philosophy of teaching, and in the process of finding his own teaching mantra, he would most often fall prey to deeply engrained prejudgment and stereotypes over the social role of the teacher.2 Literature ReviewThe preferred approach today to different societal issues in general and educational ones in particular, is an intercultural dimension, which is about the encounter of cultures, in their broadest sense. The school itself is the theatre of such an encounter, where different group identities, with differing values and beliefs, with different social status, come in contact. Is the modern teacher prepared to face the ensuing clashes between these minority or identity groups?According to Sonia Nieto (2012), the cultural competence of teachers is not only appropriate in a democratic society, but also leads to equitable (Nieto 2012: 9). She provided in 1992 a definition of multicultural education which is still taken into consideration by many educators nowadays, identifying seven dimensions of multicultral education: antiracist, basic, important for all students, pervasive, education for social justice, a process and critical pedagogy (Nieto & Bode 2008:44).Throughout this article I will be using the term intercultural education, instead of multicultural one, as this distinction needs to be made in order to distinguish between the coexistence of different cultures, national, ethnic, religious groups all living within the same territory, but not necessarily coming into contact with each other (multicultural societies), and the coexistence of different cultures, and groups living together within the same space, but constantly interacting, in a process of mutual respect and understanding of each other's values and traditions (intercultural societies) (cf. CE 1995).According to Guðrun Petursdottir (2009), when talking about intercultural education one needs to at least three questions into account:a). First, there arises the why question. Why should we need intercultural education? What in our society has changed that we need to take different educational approaches? Why should an educator take intercultural teaching approaches into consideration and why should teachers even envisage changing and adapting their teaching styles?b). The second question is the how one. How do we achieve the aims of intercultural education in our classes? How can we organize our teaching so as to attain those aims? Are some methods more likely to give better results rather than others?c). The third question that arises is the what question. …