An examination of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade teachers' beliefs and cultural awareness of students of color in relationship to teacher ethnicity, teaching certification, years of teaching experience, and gender.

摘要

The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to examine the relationship between teachers' beliefs and cultural awareness of students of color, and teacher ethnicity, level of teaching certification, years of teaching experience and gender.;During the 2005--2006 academic school year, data was collected from teachers teaching in a large urban school district, located in the southeastern portion of Texas, to examine teacher's working with diverse populations of students in diverse communities. The Cultural Awareness and Belief Inventory (CABI) was used to collect this data. The CABI measures teachers' beliefs and cultural awareness when working with African American students in comparison to their counterparts of other ethnicities.;This study examined the data collected from teachers teaching students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. The data collected in this study was examined based on four descriptive characteristics, teacher ethnicity, teacher gender, level of teaching certification (elementary or secondary), and years of teaching experience. Data collected from African American teachers and European American teachers were examined for statistically significant differences. The results indicate that there is a statically significant difference in the beliefs and cultural awareness of African American and European American teacher's teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. There was not a statistically significant difference in the beliefs and cultural awareness of teachers teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth grade in relationship to teacher gender, level of teaching certification (elementary or secondary), or years of teaching experience.