Teachers' Dispositions and Beliefs about Cultural and Linguistic Diversity

Elia Vázquez-Montilla,Megan Just,Robert Triscari

doi:10.13189/ujer.2014.020806

Abstract

Teachers' beliefs towards their students' cultural backgrounds and languages affect all aspects of learning. Critical consciousness of attitudes and beliefs about the increasing culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student population is necessary for aligning individual beliefs with effective teaching practices. Rethinking how to work with diverse students is central to how future teachers will impact academic outcomes of the increasing CLD student presence in schools. There is paucity in current literature that informs us about the dispositions that may have a positive correlation with affirming attitudes toward working in a more diverse schools system. Additionally, it appears to be a lack of a systematic analysis of the various factors and characteristics of teachers and their attitudinal beliefs about language and cultural diversity in the schools. Consequently, there is a need to identify the efficacy of the integrated and infused ideas related to diversity especially in the attitudes toward CLD students. This study attempted to find factors that may influence beliefs, dispositions, and teaching practices when encountering CLD students among teachers from school districts in a tri-county area in southwest Florida. The information is based on responses provided by 425 participants to the

Highlights

Extensive discussions are found in the educational literature on current views of diversity, multiculturalism, and global pluralism in today’s world
There is paucity in current literature that informs us about the challenges or dispositions that may have a positive correlation with affirming attitudes toward working in a more diverse schools system
The survey used in this study included 17 items added by Flores and Smith [9], designed to provide measures of teachers’ characteristics that may affect attitudes/beliefs towards culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students; in their study, these items are broken down and coded across “four new constructs”: “rights and privileges,” “aesthetic caring,” “exclusionary/assimilationist” and “responsibility/culpability” (p. 332)

Summary

Introduction

Extensive discussions are found in the educational literature on current views of diversity, multiculturalism, and global pluralism in today’s world. Jordan Irvine [3] addresses schools of education as she calls for change in the processes of educating and preparing teachers for diversity. She contends that the end goal in the affirmation of diversity should be a call to action for social justice and calls for revision and refinement in teacher education. Student populations are becoming increasingly racially, ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse. Mokhtari and Strebel [12] point out that English language learners (ELLs) represent the fastest growing student population in the U.S.; of the estimated 5 million ELLs currently in American classrooms, approximately two-thirds (66%) are in at least one course taught by mainstream teachers

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Conclusion