| With the increasing diversity of students in Canadian schools (Egbo, 2011; Gerin-Lajoie, 2008; Solomon, Portelli, Daniel & Campbell, 2005), teachers are expected to have an understanding, knowledge and skills related to diversity to be effective teachers of students with often multiple and intersecting diversities. Teacher education is ever more concerned with developing programs where future teachers can develop critical understandings and knowledge of the nature of diversity and the ability to readjust and respond to the diversity dynamics in schools (Childs, Broad, Gallagher-MacKay, Sher, Escayg & McGrath, 2010; Gambhir, Broad, Evans & Gaskell, 2008; Gagne, 2009). This case study investigated aspects of teaching and learning about diversity in a concurrent teacher education program with a focus on the sources and influences on diversity conceptions of teacher candidates. Findings revealed multiple tensions within the teacher education program, as well as within and among teacher candidates as they learned about diversity. At the programmatic level, there was tension caused by the differences in the way the teacher education curriculum was planned, delivered and experienced. At the level of the learner, individual characteristics appeared to influence developing conceptions of diversity to the point where these overshadowed the careful design features intended to support the development of socially just and inclusive educators. Two main lenses were used to analyse findings and highlight these tensions: the conceptual change lens (Posner et al., 1982; Hewson & Lemberger, 2000; Larkin, 2010, 2012) and the liberal theory (Moosa-Mitha, 2005; McLaren, 1995; Fleras, 2002). The findings suggest that in addition to the model of teacher knowledge (Shulman, 1987) and conceptual change approach (Posner et al., 1982; Larkin 2010), other concepts and theories are important to understand teacher candidates' evolving conceptions of diversity as members of a society where liberal multicultural notions of diversity are promoted through public discourses and policies. These include what Fuller (1969) calls the stages of concerns of beginning teachers; King and Kitchener's (2004) reflective judgment model of development of epistemic assumptions in early adulthood or what Dewey (1904) calls "mental movement" of a student. |
