Exploring elementary teacher self-efficacy and teacher beliefs: are we preparing teachers to teach culturally diverse students?

As student demographics continue to change in countries across the world, questions remain as to how well teacher education programmes are training teachers to teach students who are culturally diverse from their teacher. Preservice teachers (N = 523) from six different teacher education programs across one state in the U.S. completed a teacher self-efficacy scale used to determine their beliefs about teaching culturally diverse students at the end of their training and again after their first year of teaching. Teacher education programme descriptions across six programs suggested programs are provided and it was determined that these varied in their structure and in required coursework. Furthermore, findings revealed statistically significant differences across programs. Generally, preservice teachers rated their capability to teach diverse students as “adequate” to “well” on a five-point Likert scale. Scores dropped after one year of teaching full-time. However, these differences in mean scores as participants moved from the preservice to the inservice stage were not statistically significant. These findings suggest that teacher self-efficacy to teach culturally diverse students remain fairly stable as teachers make this critical transition so the work done at the teacher training stage is critical. Recommendations and implications for teacher education programs are provided.