International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
The first section of the results showed effective incorporation of cultural diversity in the teacher education
curriculum. However, this section has highlighted tensions and disjuncture between what happens in teacher
education classrooms and teaching-practice contexts, which could be an indication that theory taught in teacher
education curriculum is not in sync with phenomena in school classrooms. This might point to the need for
lecturers to contextualise cultural diversity. It also shows that students should be equipped with theoretical
knowledge of cultural diversity before they are plunged to swim or sink in school contexts with learners from
diverse cultural backgrounds. Placements of students in culturally diverse contexts cannot and should not happen
in a vacuum where theoretical knowledge has not been taught.
DISCUSSION
This study investigated the incorporation of cultural diversity in a teacher education curriculum. Evidence
from the participants’ accounts attested to the fact that teacher educators made efforts to link these aspects.
However, the analysis showed that the efforts made are incoherent, additive and lacking comprehensiveness.
There was no evidence of a theoretical basis that informs the processes that are followed in incorporating
cultural diversity in a comprehensive manner that will enhance students’ theoretical understandings and practical
implementation of this aspect. The findings revealed the fragmented nature of the approach used in the teacher
education curriculum under study. They also highlighted a symptomatic neglect of situational teacher knowledge
in the teacher education curriculum, a fact highlighted by Sosibo (2012) in her study on the privileged teacher
knowledge domains in teacher education programmes. Similarly, issues raised by students on the perpetual
disregard of cultural diversity and transformation in teaching practice placements appear to confirm Sosibo and
Kwendas’ (2013) findings on their study of the views of culturally diverse students on teaching-practice
placements. These issues may be an indication of a need to develop a theoretical framework that will serve as a
basis for incorporation of cultural diversity.
The literature revealed that differences exist among learners and learners, and learners and teachers as they all
bring with them varying cultures, traditions, beliefs and so forth into the teaching-learning situation. Therefore,
it is important for students to be equipped with theoretical knowledge and practical skills of handling cultural
diversity in the classroom. As was shown in the literature, since learners’ cultures are a vehicle for cognitive
growth and development, it stands to reason that students should be equipped with skills of handling learning
environments with cultural diverse learners. The eight dimensions of the diversity pedagogy theory (Sheets,
2009) are critical as they demonstrate that a teacher’s pedagogical behaviour influences a certain cultural display
by a learner. This statement is critical as it might imply that if a teacher behaves in a manner that disrespects or
disregards a learner’s culture, the learner might be influenced to display reactions that the teacher may consider
culturally inappropriate, unaware that she or he is the cause of that learner’s cultural reaction. Without
theoretical knowledge of these issues, students may commit flaws in implementing cultural diversity. Students
are teachers-in-the-making who are being prepared to become socialising agents of learners who bring diversity
into the classrooms. Without thorough preparation, they might find it difficult to develop the cognition of those
learners who come from backgrounds that are different from theirs, and to implement the teaching and learning
approaches that would enhance those learners’ cognitive development. Therefore, for student teachers, acquiring
the skills of putting cultural diversity into practice should be made an educational imperative.
In his progressive education, John Dewey (1939) argued that for learners to understand democracy, they must
live it. The same applies to cultural diversity. For students in this study to understand cultural diversity, they
must live it in their everyday teaching and learning encounters and in every aspect of their teacher education
curriculum. In other words, it must be integrated in the whole curriculum and in all the classroom phenomena.
This includes seating arrangements, group activities and assignments, which in this study were reported to
reinforce separation rather than integration among students from different cultural backgrounds. If these
divisions continue to happen, student teachers might experience difficulty with understanding cultural diversity
fully, let alone practising it.
CONCLUSION
In this study it became evident that teacher educators made strides in ensuring that student teachers were
equipped with this knowledge using a variety of strategies. Nonetheless, it was disconcerting to note that
although this aspect is incorporated, it is done in a fragmented manner that does not help students to effectively
apply it in contexts with learners from different cultural and racial backgrounds. In South Africa and globally, it
might help if teacher education policy makers establish partnerships with teacher educators in order to ensure
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