Should teachers be colorblind? How multicultural and egalitarian beliefs differentially relate to aspects of teachers' professional competence for teaching in diverse classrooms

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Highlights

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    We investigated how cultural beliefs relate to aspects of professional competence.

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    The cultural beliefs studied were multiculturalism (MC) and colorblindness (CB).

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    Paths analyses with 433 beginning teachers showed differential results.

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    Only MC was positively related to motivational orientations and positive values.

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    CB was negatively related to willingness to adapt teaching to diversity.

Abstract

This study uses the framework of professional competence to investigate the relationship between two cultural beliefs, multiculturalism and colorblindness, and different aspects of professional competence for teaching immigrant students. Results from path model analyses with 433 beginning teachers showed that participants with multicultural beliefs reported higher motivational orientations (self-efficacy and enthusiasm for teaching, and more integrative career motives), more positive values (lower agreement with negative stereotypes), and more reported willingness to adapt their teaching. Colorblind beliefs showed no relationships to the former constructs and were negatively related to reported willingness to adapt teaching to culturally diverse students.

Section snippets

Should teachers be colorblind? How multicultural and colorblind beliefs differentially relate to aspects of teachers' professional competence for teaching in diverse classrooms

Due to as steady increase of migration, the number of students who find themselves to be an ethnic and cultural minority in their classrooms is on the rise worldwide (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2013). However, immigrant students and minority students in general are likely to show lower academic performance compared to non-immigrant majority students in most countries around the globe (for example large-scale international assessments like PISA, see OECD, 2004,

Participants and procedure

Participants (N = 433) were beginning teachers taking part in the COACTIV-R study, which was conducted to assess professional competence and development during the induction phase (for more details see Löwen, Baumert, Kunter, Krauss, & Brunner, 2013). Teacher education in Germany is divided into two phases: an initial university-based phase and a second induction phase, in which beginning teachers are gradually prepared for classroom teaching (see Jones, 2000). All COACTIV-R participants were in

Analyses and results

We estimated a fully identified path model using Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2006) with the two subscales of the [scale name] as predictors and the aspects of professional competence as outcome variables (see Fig. 2). We chose a path model to be able to control for the effects of the respective other subscale and to analyze the relationship between the two subscales and the outcomes simultaneously. That is, in an SEM analysis, one-sided arrows reflect unique contributions of one variable

Summary and discussion

In the title, we posed the question whether teachers should be colorblind. Using a large independent sample of German beginning teachers, we investigated whether a teacher's multicultural and colorblind beliefs differentially relate to other aspects of professional competence for teaching in culturally diverse settings. In answering our initial question, colorblind beliefs were unrelated to any of the positive teaching-related outcomes when controlling for equally positive multicultural

Acknowledgments

The COACTIV-R research project at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development was funded by the Max Planck Society's Strategic Innovation Fund (2008–2010). The authors thank Sean Hirschten, Jennifer L. Hesse and Susannah Goss for their editorial assistance.

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    1

    Present address: Department of Psychology: Social and Economic Cognition I, University of Cologne, Richard-Strauss-Str. 2, 50931 Cologne, Germany. Tel.: +49 221 470 6576.

    2

    Tel.: +49 30 82406 622.

    3

    Present address: Department of Education and Psychology: Early Childhood Education, Freie Universität Berlin Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany. Tel.: +49 30 838 51675; fax: +49 30 838 75422.

    4

    Present address: Department of Psychology and Sport Science, Educational Psychology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt/Main, Grüneburgplatz 1, 60323 Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Tel.: +49 69 798 35369.

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