Intercultural sensitivity development among practicing teachers: Life history perspectives.

摘要

A lack of intercultural sensitivity leads to possibilities for classroom culture clashes, and as recent history reveals, public ones. For all students to achieve educational equity and take part in a complex global future, teachers must be sensitive to different worldviews.;This study seeks to establish a statistical picture of intercultural sensitivity for a sample of practicing K--12 teachers in northeastern Ohio, then, utilizing life history methodology, to investigate the experiences culminating in the current level of sensitivity of a select few.;Descriptive, exploratory, drawing from narrative and phenomenological inquiry, the study questions: Teacher differences in intercultural sensitivity as measured by an instrument of intercultural development; Teacher tendency to minimize cultural differences; Relationship of demographic variable to intercultural sensitivity; Knowledge sources identified as salient to cultural understanding; Existence of self-reported relationship between perceived intercultural competence and intercultural sensitivity; Cultural conception/perception change throughout the lifetime; Pivotal/crisis moments in regard to intercultural sensitivity and resolution thereof.;A quantitative measure, the Intercultural Development Inventory, distributed to 155 teachers revealed few above middle stages of intercultural sensitivity. Seventeen educators, chosen to represent the spectrum of quantitative results, each participated in approximately four interviews. Seven were selected for analysis; their final data verification marking a 2-year involvement.;Life history analysis, requiring multiple histories visited by researcher and researched, resulted in personal/professional revelations. To encompass the complex murals of life experience participants painted, results are explained via adoption of a museum metaphor.;For teachers to understand worldviews, what is termed Lifeviews must be examined. These participant/artists pointed to culminating rather than singular experiences; supporting acquisition of intercultural sensitivity culled from the canvas of life's entirety, as opposed to one life stage.;Participants differed in: conflict management, minimization of cultural differences, racial privilege awareness, early life influences, and consciousness of self/other realities. University preparation and professional development were cited as severely lacking. Recommendations were given for teacher education, research, and professional development.;Most importantly, this study constituted stories of exemplary teachers. Overwhelmingly kind; they opened homes, classrooms, and lives for a stranger simply from desire to help with the educational enterprise to which they devote their lives.