“My Eyes were Opened”: Tracing the Conceptual Change of Pre-Service Teachers in a Special Education/Multicultural Education Course

Abstract

As the number of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners with disabilities increases in the United States, many educators and policymakers purport that teacher education programs (TEPs) must incorporate multicultural education more substantively. However, we know very little about the impact of multicultural education on the thinking and actions of preservice teachers. Moreover, we know very little about how changes in content and format affect their outcomes on evaluative measures.This study traces the conceptual change of 26 preservice teachers enrolled in an introductory special education course with a multicultural component. Concept mapping and comparative essays were used to analyze quantitatively and qualitatively which concepts the preservice teachers found most salient and specific. Results indicated statistically significant changes in the concepts the students' deemed most central and specific. Also, qualitative analysis revealed that students' post-maps were more complex than their premaps. Implications for research and practice are included.

Promoting Special Education Preservice Teacher Expertise

“…Two other groups of researchers examined the role that a course combined with active learning opportunities, such as cases, videos, self-analysis activities, and dialogue journals played in changing special and general education preservice teachers' understandings of culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families. Preservice teachers participating in these studies were graduate students from special and general education programs as well as undergraduates from a unified early childhood program (Correa, Hudson, & Hayes, 2004;Trent & Dixon, 2004). In both cases, preservice teachers demonstrated deeper knowledge and more complex understandings of culturally and linguistically diverse students, as demonstrated by their performance on pre-and post-concept maps combined with essays explaining maps.…”

Preservice and Early Career Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusion, Instructional Accommodations, and Fairness: Three Profiles

“…Parents confirm that ''condescending or negative attitudes'' (Pivik, McComas, & Laflamme, 2002, p. 103) toward students with disabilities are hurtful, an obviously detrimental condition to maintaining a successful inclusion program. Whether teachers enter their preparation programs with these attitudes intact, or whether they acquire them during their programs of study (Trent & Dixon, 2004), it is important that teachers hold attitudes and beliefs supportive of inclusive instructional models.…”

Taiwanese first-grade teachers' perceptions of inclusive education

“…However, not every teacher has positive perceptions of inclusive education. Given that teachers' perceptions influence their own behaviours, how they perceive inclusive education has the potential to strongly impact their classroom practices (Brownell and Pajares 1999;Trent and Dixon 2004;Weiner 2003). Additionally, recent research suggests that children's attitudes toward people with disabilities develop during the preschool and early elementary years (Innes and Diamond 1999) as teachers' perceptions and subsequent classroom practices influence children's ideas about and interactions with other children (Bricker 1995;Lieber et al 1998).…”