Multicultural Perception Research Articles

Multiculturalism Incorporated: Student Perceptions

Multicultural education has transformed higher education both in terms of research and in terms of student experiences. Given the complexity of our institutions, the overall effects of these transformations are mixed. Building on the successes and strengths of multicultural education as it is currently incorporated in institutions and programs will involve better understanding how it is perceived, positively and negatively, by those who are experiencing it first hand. In this article we seek to contribute to this reflection through a discussion of a survey of students’ perceptions of multiculturalism in a large first-year program in a research university.

Connecting Multicultural Education Theories With Practice: A Case Study of an Intervention Course Using the Realistic Approach in Teacher Education

This paper reports on a 2-year-long research conducted under a qualitative research design. The study investigated the effectiveness of an immersion course that followed a realistic approach on preservice teachers' deconstruction of negative and preconceived notions held about culturally and linguistically diverse students. Specifically, the study involved White female preservice teachers shadowing culturally and linguistically diverse students for a semester and reflecting on the experience. The study provides persuasive accounts by the participant preservice teachers on the positive effects the course's approach had on both their multicultural perceptions and their ability to connect theory with practice.

Multicultural Student Perceptions of Fast Food Restaurant Brands: An Australian Study

ABSTRACT The Australian food-services business is worth an estimated AUD$24 billion, of which the fast-food industry is one of the fastest-growing segments. The industry is dominated by a number of fiercely competitive multinational chains, and price is a common strategy to increase market share. However, in view of changing customer expectations and the growing multicultural market, the industry is becoming aware that pricing strategies alone are no longer viable. Rather, a customer-oriented approach tailored to individual needs is considered to be a more productive strategy in facilitating loyalty and customer satisfaction. In view of the growing international representation of fast food clientele, this paper examines the perceptions of multicultural university students with respect to fast-food restaurants. The results emphasise similarities and differences in the perception of quality and brands across cultural groups.

Service-Learning in a One-Year Alternative Route to Teacher Certification: A Powerful Multicultural Teaching Tool

This five-year study examined the effectiveness of an innovative approach to service-learning embedded in a one year site-based alternative route to teacher certification. The ten-week school-based study investigated the influence of service-learning on the multicultural perceptions, cross-cultural communication skills, and social justice cognizance of future teachers. The study participants consisted of 73 secondary pre-service teacher candidates. Data sources included: participant reflective journals, debriefings and final reports, letters from and discussions with host school service recipients, and investigator interviews and field notes. Study results indicate that service-learning within the time constraints of a one-year alternative route to teacher certification can provide future teachers with insight into the politics of education, increase their interactive proficiency with culturally diverse students, teachers and administrators, raise their level of multicultural consciousness, and augment their educational foundations and content knowledge while connecting theory to classroom practice.

Walking A Kilometer In Their Shoes: An Exploration Of American And South Korean University Students Expectations And Experiences

An exploratory study of university students from very different cultural backgrounds, attending universities in their home countries, was undertaken to assess their perceptions of multiculturalism, and their expectations and experiences as university students. Although a number of similarities existed, survey results indicated that the South Korean students were significantly more interested in multicultural issues. Survey results of American students indicated that even though their university offered myriad opportunities for increasing their understanding of diversity, multiculturalism and global issues, students lacked awareness of the opportunities and infrequently participated in the activities. This finding suggests that if a university is constrained by the non-diverse demography of its region, it will face a difficult task in motivating students to become globally aware and internationally competitive.

Education in a plural society or multicultural education? The views of Israeli Arab and Jewish school counselors

We suggest that in societies with highly complex and conflictual cultural diversity, different perceptions of pluralism and multiculturalism are likely to be related to divergent expectations for multicultural education. Our study examines—through semi‐structured interviews—the perceptions of cultural pluralism and multicultural education among 37 Israeli school counselors from two national groups—Arabs and Jews. Our findings suggest that the majority‐minority context largely determines the counselors’ views of multiculturalism: Arab counselors focus primarily on the Arab‐Jewish divide which places them within the unprivileged minority, whereas the Jewish counselors equate multiculturalism primarily with the approach toward Jewish immigrants who belong to their own ethnic/national group. Counselors’ responses seem to reflect their national and school organizational cultures, and it is suggested that training institutions should provide them with the knowledge, values and skills to make them culturally proficient and enable them to become agents of educational and social change.

Multicultural issues in school settings.

As the caseload of ethnically and culturally diverse students who stutter increases, speech-language pathologists will need to become more culturally sensitive. Many speech-language pathologists, however, indicate that they are not comfortable treating clients from diverse backgrounds who stutter. Busy school schedules may prevent speech-language pathologists from obtaining information about multicultural aspects of stuttering. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to provide speech-language pathologists with information that addresses multicultural perceptions about stuttering and suggestions for the assessment and treatment of stuttering in ethnically and culturally diverse groups.

Shifting Boundaries of Self and Other

This article suggests that both the multicultural perception of ‘ community’ as a bounded and internally homogeneous body and the celebration of migrants as hybrids and anti-essentialist actors fail to acknowledge the complexity of processes of identity construction. The first reifies and essentializes migrants’ cultural identities, denying subjective contestations over notions of cultural and religious authenticity. The celebration of migrants as progressive and counterhegemonic ‘hybrids’, however, reinforces essentialist understandings of ‘migrants’, producing a hierarchy between experiences of displacement. The article suggests that it is essential to understand the ways in which migrants construct imagined, transnational and local communities. It provides a picture of the ways in which Moroccan migrant women in Italy draw and experience boundaries of exclusion and inclusion, of Self and Other in their day-to-day practices and discourses. In particular, it argues that Moroccan women define themselves both vis-a-vis Italians as well as by drawing boundaries between themselves and other Moroccan women and men.

Multicultural Perceptions of 1st-Year Elementary Teachers’ Urban, Suburban, and Rural Student Teaching Placements

This study was designed to determine the effects student teaching in four settings (urban Comer, urban non-Comer, suburban, and rural) had on 1st-year teachers’ (a) perceptions of success in general, (b) success as it relates to their perceptions of the multicultural needs of students, and (c) perceptions of success in their interactions with parents from a variety of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The findings indicate that 1st-year teachers who had student teaching experiences in urban settings perceived themselves as better prepared to deal with multicultural needs of children and better prepared to work with parents in multiracial and multiethnic settings. The implications include the conclusion that student teaching placements in cross-cultural settings contribute to the preparation of 1st-year teachers for work in urban schools.

The National Days in the Bilingual School

Idit Perelmuter, The National Days in the Bilingual School. Interdisciplinary Contexts of Special Pedagogy, no. 27, Poznań 2019. Pp. 299–333. Adam MickiewiczUniversity Press. ISSN 2300-391X. e-ISSN 2658-283X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/ikps.2019.27.14
 The bilingual school tends to address both the national days of the Arabs and the national days of the Jews as a part of its multicultural perception. As aforementioned, these days are characterized as tense and complicated days in the school, both for the Arabs and for the Jews, because of the narratives and perceptions that they represent, which sometimes are contradictory and. Nevertheless, it is possible to see that the school addresses the different perceptions and narratives of each culture, with recognition of the difference and uniqueness of each one of them and with reinforcement of the commonalities between them. In this way, it gives hope and encourages the desire for a shared life between Jews and Arabs in Israel, which on the one hand includes the difference and on the other hand broadens the common denominator between the two groups. This article will describe the national days of Arabs and Jews in the bilingual school in Jerusalem. It will focus on the meaning of the days, their complexity, and the ways of coping and implementation in the framework of the school, with reference to the school perception.