Teachers on intercultural education

Abstract

Opinions differ on the desirability of paying attention to intercultural education in schools and on the opportunities to do this. Theoretical agreement and conceptual clarity on the concept are hard to find. The theoretical debate on intercultural education is far removed from daily practice in the classroom. Ideally, experience‐related ideas and the insights of teachers should form part of the debate. In this article we present an example of measuring teachers' opinions on the concept of intercultural education. The research was carried out in The Netherlands with the help of a written questionnaire. Seventy‐four teachers participated. The researchers differentiated four accents in intercultural education, based on the literature. This differentiation was not reflected in the teachers' answers. They had a slight preference for a general pluralistic interpretation of intercultural education and, hence, for a particular pedagogical approach. We will explore this finding further in the discussion.