Prepared to Respond? Investigating Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions of their Readiness for Culturally Responsive Teaching

Authors

Alicia L. Moore, Southwestern UniversityFollow
Rebecca M. Giles, University of South AlabamaFollow
Paige Vitulli, University of South AlabamaFollow

Abstract

Increasing cultural diversity in American schools has made preparing graduates to work with diverse learners an essential goal of teacher education programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of elementary (K-6) undergraduate preservice teachers (n=36) in a dual certification program regarding their personal and professional readiness for culturally responsive teaching. Data collected using the Cultural Responsive Teaching Readiness Scale (Karatas & Oral, 2017) revealed relatively high mean overall with little variation (M = 4.25, SD = 0.18) with a statistically significant difference (t (33) = 18.65, p < .001) between Personal Readiness (M = 4.46) and Professional Readiness (M = 3.98). Participants seemed to perceive classroom practice as influential in terms of their cultural awareness, thus, indicating the importance of partnerships with area schools and districts to ensure effective field experiences for preparing teachers for sustained employment in culturally and linguistically diverse settings.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Moore, Alicia L.; Giles, Rebecca M.; and Vitulli, Paige (2021) "Prepared to Respond? Investigating Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions of their Readiness for Culturally Responsive Teaching," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 15: No. 1, Article 10.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2021.150110