Preparing preservice teachers to work with diverse student populations: Implications for visual art teacher education

This research investigates how future art teachers are being prepared to teach diverse student populations. This topic is particularly important because today's art teachers are being required to work with increasingly diverse student populations in the classroom. The review of literature suggests there are multiple interpretations of what multicultural education is. Further, the review of literature indicates there is no consensus among teacher educators on how to prepare teachers for classrooms representing multicultural student populations.; The study contains three research questions. One question asks: how and to what extent are visual art preservice teachers being prepared to work with learners whose backgrounds are different from their own and from that of others? Another question asks: how and to what extent are visual art preservice teachers being prepared to function non-ethnocentrically within pluralistic classrooms and schools? The final question asks: how and to what extent are visual art preservice teachers being prepared to provide discipline-based art education instruction about the pluralism of U.S. society?; A case study design was utilized to obtain data on The Ohio State University's art teacher education program. Sources of data collection included classroom observations and survey research. An open and close-ended questionnaire was designed and mailed to 170 potential respondents, all art educators or prospective art educators. The questionnaire requested that respondents provide information about their perceptions of The Ohio State University's art teacher education program. Information from the questionnaire is presented descriptively and in tables and figures.; Consistent with anticipated outcomes, the results of the study revealed that a large number of teachers were not provided with the instruction or experiences in their teacher education program that would allow them to meet the needs of diverse student populations. The study concludes that there is a need to redefine/reshape teacher training to improve the capacity of teachers to teach in a multicultural context.