Culturally responsive teaching: beliefs of pre-service teachers in the Viennese context

Abstract

This study aims to contribute to the discussion of culturally responsive teacher education by asking pre-service teachers’ beliefs about their readiness, strengths and needs to teach in culturally diverse classrooms. Participants were pre-service teachers (N = 453) studying in three different teacher education institutions in Vienna via a questionnaire including both open-ended and close-ended questions as the data collection instrument. Quantitative findings show that pre-service teachers hold a fair level of readiness in several skills for responding to culturally diverse classrooms, while qualitative findings present the pre-service teachers’ deep trust in their characteristics and their personal attitude to cultural diversity as their strengths. Findings also show that pre-service teachers are challenged with two issues: anxiety about their own poor cross-cultural knowledge and their prospective students’ poor language skills. The study also reaches the suggestions of pre-service teachers to teacher education programs about how to become more culturally responsive.