Teachers’ perceptions of what knowledge they need to foster their multicultural competence: what are the implications for in-service teacher education programmes?

Abstract

Teachers generally feel themselves ill-prepared to handle diversity issues and their sense of multiculturalism is rather limited. Their knowledge needs in this particular aspect seem not yet to have been identified. To address this issue, the lived experiences and the reflection on their knowledge needs of 33 native Chinese teachers in Hong Kong were collected. Findings show that although three knowledge areas emerged based on different types of reflection, the social action approach of knowledge, embedded in critical reflection that can foster their multicultural mindset, was not a core concern of teachers studied. Consequently, that has been an obstacle for them to foster their multicultural mindset. Teachers studied were interested in pursuing hands-on knowledge and skills with practical reflection but gave little attention to reflecting on the broader goals of multicultural education with a whole-school approach. Viewing this, an in-service teacher education programme that involves changing personal beliefs and provides an increase of self-awareness based on critical reflection that will lead teachers to enact as cultural gatekeepers is proposed. Furthermore, by identifying and addressing teachers’ knowledge needs, this study may be able to shed light on the global discussion on ways to foster teachers’ multicultural competency.