1998/99 PCERII Funded Research Abstract
Research Title: Cultural Integration and Teaching
Research Team:
Research Domain(s): Education
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The Culture and Teaching Project is a tri-partite collaborative research study between the faculties of education at the Universities of Alberta, Regina, and Manitoba and secondary schools in Edmonton, Regina and Winnipeg. The project aims to improve understanding of ways to promote ethno-cultural harmony in schools and effective strategies in teacher education to prepare teachers for ethno-cultural diversity.
Research over the part two years explored student teachers’ experiences and understanding of ethno-cultural diversity through surveys and interviews. Collaborative projects with urban schools developed strategies and initiatives for responding to the needs of their culturally-diverse communities. These projects will be on-going in the coming year.
A video, Diverse Cultures/Complex Teaching, produced collaboratively by the University of Alberta, partner schools, and Vicom Multimedia, highlights complexities of Canadian multicultural education and current school initiatives to promote cross-cultural harmony. This video will be used in teacher education classes to challenge students’ assumptions and enhance their understandings of ethno-cultural diversity, and for professional development purposes in schools and with community groups. A companion facilitator’s handbook to the video will be developed over the summer.
Survey and interview with student teachers in the three provinces about their responses to the video will provide data on teacher identity formation during formal teacher preparation. A small group of mentor teachers and student teachers will join with the university in an action research project to explicitly focus on multicultural classrooms as a component of their professional identity formation.