Enjoying Cultural Differences Assists Teachers in Learning about Diversity and Equality. An Evaluation of Antidiscrimination and Diversity Training

Abstract

The present study is based on a quasi-experimental research design and presents the results of an evaluation of Antidiscrimination and Diversity Training that took place at the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana, rooted in the anti-bias approach to educating diversity and equality issues (Murray & Urban, 2012). The experimental group included 52 in-service early childhood teachers attending the training, which consisted of a total of 120 hours. There was also a control group comprising 130 teachers. The ADT had a decisive impact on all of the measured variables: on an improvement in the participants’ knowledge of discrimination, and on increased support for positive measures and for the preservation of the cultural traditions and language of immigrant children. It was found that self-assessed personality characteristics are predictors of the teachers’ beliefs, especially the enjoying awareness of cultural differences variable, which correlates with all of the dependent variables.

Cultural Inclusion in Early Childhood and Primary Education

“…These studies demonstrated how such PD efforts can improve the use of home language in the classroom (i.e., Daniel & Pray, 2017;Spies et al, 2017) or lead to higher teacher responsiveness and less disciplinary referrals of black children (i.e., ). Yet, in many interventions reflection was used to target teachers' belief systems rather than actual practice or behavior (e.g., Jones & Brown, 2015;Lazar & Offenberg, 2011;Psalti, 2007;Turnšek, 2013). These studies used reflection to help teachers investigate who they are and to make them aware of how their own cultural background influences their practices.…”