Primary trainee teachers' views about cultural diversity and their sense of preparedness towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms

The aim of my research was to explore primary trainee teachers’ views about cultural diversity and their sense of preparedness towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms, based on their experiences of their teacher training programme. For my study I adopted a Case Study- Mixed Methods Design (CS-MM), where I carried out a case study, and I used a mixed methods approach for data collection, specifically questionnaire and interviews with trainee teachers from both primary PGCE and primary undergraduate courses, interviews with members of academic staff working on teacher training courses, and course content analysis. Using Critical Race Theory and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, the data analysis showed that trainee teachers had positive perceptions towards cultural diversity. However their understanding of cultural diversity was not supported though their respective teacher training programmes. Moreover, they were not satisfied with the preparation they had received through their training courses towards teaching in diverse classrooms; the majority of trainee teachers thus indicated that they wished to receive more training in certain areas. However, when they expressed their willingness and desire to get appropriately prepared towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms through evaluation forms in the end of the year, they were not taken into consideration by the faculty and by their tutors. The contribution to knowledge of this study is that still today, trainee teachers continue to be underprepared to teach in culturally diverse classrooms, and their understandings of cultural diversity and equality in education have been mostly developed based on the colourblind approach and were rooted in a deficit model, which might further marginalise minority students. Furthermore, the type of course (PGCE or BA with QTS) attended does not make a difference to trainee teachers' feeling of preparedness or their understandings of key terms, including cultural diversity, equality and education and intercultural education.