The relationship of preservice teachers' cross-cultural experiences with their beliefs about teaching diverse students

The increasing diversity among students in our nation's schools is an important curricular issue in teacher education today. This study explored the relationship among preservice teachers' cross-cultural life experiences and their beliefs about teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students, along with their age, gender, and second language ability.;The participants in this study were all the preservice teachers at Kansas State University enrolled in Educational Psychology, a required course in the teacher education program, during the summer and fall terms of 1995.;Significant relationships were found among the key variables of the study. Age was most frequent of the statistically significant predictor variables of the study. However, second language ability produced the highest degree of relation among the predictor variables.;The review of the literature and research findings of this study suggest the following considerations for the curriculum of teacher education: (1) Is there a need for well-developed measurement instruments to assess preservice teachers' levels of cross-cultural experiences and their beliefs about teaching diverse student populations? (2) Would the acquisition and utilization of a second language be a feasible means by which preservice teachers could gain "cross-cultural competencies?" (3) Should the "cross-cultural development and maturity" of prospective teachers be viewed as a foundation for the teaching profession, and if so, would cross-cultural competencies be required within the curriculum of teacher education? (4) Would the identification and periodic revision by preservice teachers of their personal philosophy of teaching, in particular, their beliefs about teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students, provide a means of making the entering beliefs and cross-cultural life experiences a focal point of the teacher education curriculum?;The Cross-Cultural Life Experience Checklist (CCLEC) and the Teachers' Inventory on Educating Diverse Students (TIEDS) were the measurement instruments used to gather the data in this study. In addition to the completion of the CCLEC and the TIEDS, interviews centered on issues of student diversity were conducted with randomly selected preservice teachers from the research sample of 220 participants.