07 SES 07 B, Culturally Diverse Teachers and their Resources in Dealing with Cultural Diversity: Complex Findings from Iceland, Germany and Switzerland
The hope that is associated with the call for more minority teachers is that they can deal with diversity issues more adequately and professionally. Not only students, but also the faculty and the school as a whole are believed to benefit from the employment of minority teachers. Up to now, no or little evidence has been established that supports this hope. In order to explore the conditions for successfully realizing the supposed positive impact, the paper focuses on the routines and activities of minority teachers within their classrooms. It is assumed that a positive effect of immigrant or minority teachers occurs not by their mere presence but in interaction with specific constraints and affordances of their professional context (Strasser, 2013). A qualitative design that used participant observation of teaching sessions and group discussions with students was employed. The subjects of the study were two teachers (and their students: N=50) that worked at a secondary level school in Southern Germany. The analyses of the group discussions and the observed teaching situations looked for instances in which the cultural background of the teacher came into play. Minority teachers’ practices as well as the effect of their mere presence was not exclusively determined by their immigrant or cultural status. Their specific resources only became salient in certain situations. The complex interaction of teachers’ attributes, characteristics of their students as well as those of their working context has to be further investigated. It is plausible to assume that migrant teachers explicitly have to learn to make use of potential resources that are associated with their specific experiences. Hence, for minority teachers just as well as non-migrated teachers it is necessary to be trained for the professional treatment of culturally heterogeneous composite classes.
Strasser, J. (2013). Diversity in the Faculty Room: Constraints and Affordances of Minority Teachers’ Professional Action in Germany. The International Journal of Diversity in Education, 12 (3), 131-141.
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