Teaching university students cultural diversity by means of multi-cultural picture books in Taiwan

Abstract

In a pluralistic society, learning about foreign cultures is an important goal in the kind of multi-cultural education that will lead to cultural competency. This study adopted a qualitative dominant mixed-method approach to examine the effectiveness of the multi-cultural picture books on: (1) students’ achieving awareness towards cultural diversity; (2) students’ perceptions of both the foreign language culture and their own; and, (3) students’ attitudes towards the course that uses multi-cultural picture books during language instruction. Data were collected from 32 university students’ end-of-semester journals, questionnaire responses, students’ oral reports and the researcher’s reflective notes. Results indicate that through reading the multi-cultural picture books available, students will engage in critical discussion in class, will gain insight into diversity within the foreign cultures observed, will perceive uniqueness of different cultures and will possibly change their preconceived notions in order to accept, to respect and even to appreciate different cultures.