Where Cultural Competency Begins: Changes in Undergraduate Students' Intercultural Competency (original) (raw)
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Francis Godwyll also improved this document. I have the highest regard for the support my chair, Dr. Larry Daniel provided. Especially, I am thankful for his editing excellence and his genial manner in guiding me to conduct the proper statistical analysis and to always remember the effect size. Special thanks go to the rest of my family and friends who were patient with me when I provided more detail about this work than they were prepared to receive. The past six years of collaboration with cohort 17 in the educational leadership program at UNF has shown me how true leadership is exercised. The faculty consistently demonstrated patient attention to detail with a high resolve to exhort their students to finish the job at hand. My peers provided insight, encouragement, and support for my endeavors. In particular, Kathy Thoma and I have developed a delightful friendship. Additionally, I would like to thank my spiritual family for their fellowship, prayers, and love; and for believing with me to complete this degree program. I reached this particular milestone, but as my teacher told me, "learning is an exciting adventure" and my explorations along the way will continue. iv DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my heavenly father who is the giver of all good things and to my husband, Dave Martin Holland; we are heirs together of the grace of life. To my children Marie, Scott, and Jeff, they are the joy and rejoicing of my heart. Also, I am grateful to my parents, and to Emilie Kelso, who showed me how to work hard, but to always find the joy of life. It is written.
Intercultural Competence From the Perspective of University Students and Teachers
Intercultural Education - 4th International Scientific and Professional Conference, Osijek, 2020, 2021
The aim of this study was to explore how foreign students appraise their teachers’ intercultural sensitivity in class, as well as to compare it to the teachers’ self-assessment in the same regard. The study also investigated university teachers’ self-efficacy related to their multicultural competence, i.e., knowledge and skills in class. Intercultural sensitivity was measured by means of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) adapted by Petrović et al. (2015). Multicultural teaching efficacy was determined by the newly formed Teacher Sense of Efficacy in Teaching Foreign Students Scale (TSETFS). The sample involved foreign exchange students (n = 41) and Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian university teachers (n = 163). The results of the study showed that student and teacher appraisals regarding intercultural sensitivity were similar in many respects, except interaction enjoyment and engagement. Teachers judged themselves as more sensitive in these two factors. With respect to teaching self-efficacy, the results suggested that all three teacher groups revealed a moderate level of self-efficacy. Upon closer inspection, the findings pointed to a disparity among Croatian teachers and their Serbian and Bosnian counterparts. When compared to their colleagues, Croatian teachers appeared to be least confident in their ability to instruct foreign students. No relevant differences pertaining to teaching efficacy were observed among Serbian and Bosnian teachers.
Competencies for Intercultural Education: Conceptualization and Empirical Findings
Interculturally competent teachers are required to deal appropriately and productively with both the conflicting priorities of individual diversity on the one hand and the societal function of schooling on the other. Against this background, the project " Serbian Education for Roma Inclusion: Understanding and assessing teachers " intercultural sensitivity in Serbia " aims to incorporate teaching-specific facets (Baumer & Kunter, 2013) into the general understanding of intercultural competence (Deardorff, 2009; Perry & Southwell, 2011). In doing so, the research project uses both qualitative and quantitative methodology. Qualitative part of the project addresses the issue of intercultural sensitivity in the school specific context and strives to operationalize different levels of intercultural sensitivity in teaching. The goal of the quantitative part of the project is to conceptualize teacher competences for intercultural education and to develop a set of instruments that would assess these competences-Intercultural Teacher Competence Profiler (ITCP). Additionally, the quantitative part of the project aims at adjusting ITCP in order to better fit Serbian educational context which is characterized by long history of exclusion of Roma minority students. In this paper, design and results of the quantitative part will be presented and discussed. The analyses conducted so far yield the results that encourage further development of the profiler and justify the need to take specificities of Serbian educational context into consideration when assessing pre-and in-service teacher competences for intercultural education.
The increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in academic settings necessitates greater cultural competence on the part of teachers, and enhancing the cultural competence of teachers requires a greater understanding of both the level of cultural competence among teachers and the experiences that enhance cultural competence. Teacher educators and pre-and in-service teachers from two geographic regions in the U.S. completed a cultural competence survey, and their responses were used to construct a cultural competence score. Cultural competence scores were higher in the Mid-Atlantic location than in the Midwest location, and the scores of participants were positively related to the extent of three cross-cultural experiences (speaking a foreign language, having been abroad, and having friends from other cultures). ANCOVA revealed an independent effect for teacher group and cross-cultural experiences, but not for location. The results of this study highlight the importance of cross-cultural experiences in the development of cultural competence and the importance to institutions of higher learning of understanding the cross-cultural experiences typical of the locations from where they draw their students.
Psihologija, 2018
The aim of this contribution is to identify the elements that are integral parts of a teacher-specific intercultural competence construct. In this paper, we focus on those facets of the construct that are considered to be rather value-laden and affectively tinged. Following the widely used theoretical model of teachers' professional competencies developed by Baumert and Kunter (2013), we conceptually place these facets within the Beliefs, Values, & Goals dimension, and propose four core elements: (1) appreciation of cultural diversity; (2) ethno-relative worldview; (3) attitudes toward integration; and (4) identification with goals of intercultural education. In order to test the hypothesis that these four aspects represent one single overarching latent construct, we operationalized each with an appropriate scale and then scrutinized the instruments' internal consistency, and convergent and factorial validity. The results suggest that our four scales have good internal consistencies (Cronbach's alphas between .82 and .89), adhere to a one-factor structure (as demonstrated by Confirmatory Factor Analysis), and indicate one latent construct (RMSEA = 0.000; TLI = 1.004; CFI = 1.000; SRMR = .007). With these results, this paper presents a valid, contextually relevant new instrument to assess (pre-service) teachers' beliefs, values and goals regarding intercultural education and contributes to resolving theoretical, methodological, and practical issues of research on intercultural competencies.
PSIHOLOGIJA, 2018
The aim of this contribution is to identify the elements that are integral parts of a teacher-specific intercultural competence construct. In this paper, we focus on those facets of the construct that are considered to be rather value-laden and affectively tinged. Following the widely used theoretical model of teachers' professional competencies developed by Baumert and Kunter (2013), we conceptually place these facets within the Beliefs, Values, & Goals dimension, and propose four core elements: (1) appreciation of cultural diversity; (2) ethno-relative worldview; (3) attitudes toward integration; and (4) identification with goals of intercultural education. In order to test the hypothesis that these four aspects represent one single overarching latent construct, we operationalized each with an appropriate scale and then scrutinized the instruments' internal consistency, and convergent and factorial validity. The results suggest that our four scales have good internal consistencies (Cronbach's alphas between .82 and .89), adhere to a one-factor structure (as demonstrated by Confirmatory Factor Analysis), and indicate one latent construct (RMSEA = 0.000; TLI = 1.004; CFI = 1.000; SRMR = .007). With these results, this paper presents a valid, contextually relevant new instrument to assess (pre-service) teachers' beliefs, values and goals regarding intercultural education and contributes to resolving theoretical, methodological, and practical issues of research on intercultural competencies.
Intercultural Competence in Pre-Service Teacher Candidates
International Journal of Educational Reform, 2020
This mixed-method study utilizes survey and interview data reflecting teacher candidates’ beliefs about intercultural competence to identify areas of targeted support in teacher preparation. Intercultural competence is operationalized by performance on the Cultural Intelligence Survey (CQS) identifying relative areas of strength and weakness in four dimensions. Participants reported awareness of cultural differences and motivation to interact with those from other cultures, with less confidence in their knowledge base and ability to adapt behavior in intercultural interactions. Qualitative data provided explanatory support for understanding how program elements influenced intercultural competence along a developmental trajectory of learning.