Journal of Teacher Education 2010 MacPherson 271 86

http://jte.sagepub.
com/
Journal of Teacher Education
http://jte.sagepub.com/content/61/3/271
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0022487109353032
2010 61: 271 originally published online 29 December 2009 Journal of Teacher Education
Seonaigh MacPherson
Teaching
Teachers' Collaborative Conversations About Culture: Negotiating Decision Making in Intercultural
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)

can be found at: Journal of Teacher Education Additional services and information for
http://jte.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts:
http://jte.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions:
http://jte.sagepub.com/content/61/3/271.refs.html Citations:
What is This?
- Dec 29, 2009 OnlineFirst Version of Record
- Dec 30, 2009 OnlineFirst Version of Record
- Jan 19, 2010 OnlineFirst Version of Record
- Apr 30, 2010 Version of Record >>

at Faculty of Teacher Education, Osijek on March 5, 2014 jte.sagepub.com Downloaded from at Faculty of Teacher Education, Osijek on March 5, 2014 jte.sagepub.com Downloaded from
Journal of Teacher Education
61(3) 271 286
2010 American Association of
Colleges for Teacher Education
Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0022487109353032
http://jte.sagepub.com
Teachers Collaborative Conversations
About Culture: Negotiating Decision
Making in Intercultural Teaching
Seonaigh MacPherson
1
Abstract
This article presents findings from a study that investigated intercultural teaching through teachers collaborative conversations
about critical intercultural incidents in schools. The data were generated through Web-CT and face-to-face dialogues between
preservice, inservice, and university teachers about critical intercultural incidents identified by the preservice candidates
during practicum experiences. Findings focus on teachers intercultural decision making within two broad categories: minding
(making choices, enabling cultures, respecting and sharing power, and arbitrating and agonizing what is just) and responding
(fostering intercultural communities, opening safe spaces, protecting students and surroundings, and stepping up to address
it). Implications include the role of social and emotional learning and power dynamics in intercultural teaching and the potential
for a case-study approach to intercultural teacher education.
Keywords
intercultural teaching, collaborative inquiry, decision making, teacher education, field experience
As cultural and linguistic diversity increases through migra-
tion, so do expectations that teachers will develop intercultural
skills to assist all learners to realize well-being through edu-
cation. Yet, to date, the teaching profession in North America
continues to attract disproportionate numbers of native-born,
White females of Christian, European backgrounds who
teach in proximity to the neighborhoods in which they were
raised (Canadian Teachers Federation, 2004; Sleeter, 2001;
Solomon, Portelli, Daniel, & Campbell, 2005). This implies
not only that the teaching force does not reflect the families
it serves but that teachers have less intercultural, cross-regional,
international, and multilingual experiences than other North
Americans. Furthermore, research indicates that White teach-
ers underestimate their racial, cultural, linguistic, and class
privileges, powers, and prejudices (Carr & Lund, 2007).
Although the recruitment of underrepresented groups into
the teaching profession is a key strategy for promoting intercul-
tural education, the instructional styles of teachers can be more
important than their ethnic membership (Kleinfeld, 1995).
Sleeter (2001), Friesen and Friesen (2002), Kanu (2007), and
Hogan (2008) all concluded that regardless of their ethnicity,
teachers who are knowledgeable about and responsive to the
cultural and linguistic diversity of learners can significantly
affect their academic performance, retention rates, and sense of
belonging. Teacher education programs face the challenge of
preparing new teachers with these intercultural abilities to serve
diverse learners, schools, families, and communities.
This research article offers an empirically grounded frame-
work to understand decision making in intercultural teaching in
K-12 educational contexts. The researchers investigated inter-
cultural teaching through Web-based collaborative conversations
about critical intercultural incidents encountered by preservice
teachers during school-based field experiences. One question
guided our initial research: What can we learn about intercultural
teaching through online conversations between preservice,
inservice, and university teachers about critical intercultural
incidents in schools? Consistent with constructivist grounded
theory, after the primary data were collected and initial axial
codes and coding paradigms were completed, we revised our ini-
tial research question for the final interpretive sequence around
the more focused question: What can we learn about teachers
decision making in intercultural teaching through online con-
versations about critical intercultural incidents in schools?
Intercultural Teaching
Intercultural education offers a robust concept to ground
a framework for teaching culturally and linguistically diverse
1
British Columbia Institute of Technology, Burnaby, BC, Canada
Corresponding Author:
Seonaigh MacPherson, University of British Columbia, 5128 Watling Street,
Burnaby, BC V5J 1W7, Canada
Email: seonaigh@telus.net
at Faculty of Teacher Education, Osijek on March 5, 2014 jte.sagepub.com Downloaded from
272 Journal of Teacher Education 61(3)
learners. Meaning to move between cultures, intercultural
teaching captures what it is to teach effectively in multicul-
tural contexts. Intercultural education is used in scholarship
and policy documents on diversity education in Europe and
Quebec, where multilingual and multicultural encounters and
norms are woven into the fabric of everyday life (Gouverne-
ment du Qubec, 1998; Gundara & Portera, 2008). Furthermore,
it is a term applied increasingly to international and global citi-
zenship education (Heyward, 2002). As Portera (2008) explains,
Today, intercultural education and intercultural pedagogy
are regarded as a more appropriate response to the new
context of globalisation and the increasing convergence of
different languages, religions, cultural behaviors and ways
of thinking (p. 484).
One explanation is that interculturalism is less mired than
multiculturalism in historical assumptions of cultural and
linguistic hierarchies because it emerged in the postcolonial
period when essentialist assumptions were vigorously cri-
tiqued (Portera, 2008). This is evident in the European Councils
use of the term intercultural education to imply cultural
reciprocity (Rey, 2006). As Portera points out,
An intercultural perspective has an educational and a
political dimension: interactions contribute to the dev-
elopment of co-operation and solidarity rather than to
relations of domination, conflict, rejection, and exclu-
sion. . . . Concepts such as identity and culture are not
interpreted any more as static but as dynamic. . . . Oth-
erness or strangeness is not seen just as a danger or
risk, . . . but as a possibility for enrichment and for per-
sonal and social growth. (pp. 483-485)
In North America, intercultural theories emerged in develop-
mental psychology and learning theory (McAllister & Irvine,
2000). These theories began with Obergs (1958, cited in
Adler, 1986) and Adlers (1986) culture shock theory,
which was criticized for pathologizing cross-cultural contact
and bicultural identity development within an illness metaphor
(Heyward, 2002). Christensen (1989) later proposed a five-
stage intercultural development model progressing from
unawareness to transcendent awareness, whereas Meyer
(1991) described the process in foreign language learning in
three stages: monocultural, intercultural, and transcultural.
Parallel models emerged to explain racial and interracial
identity development (McAllister & Irvine, 2000), notably
Helmss (1990) two-stage White identity theory.
Banks (1984, 1994) conceived of ethnic identity change
within a six-stage acquisition process moving from ethnic
psychological captivity through multiethnicity to globalism
and global competency. There are three significant problems
with this theory: (a) It is unrealistic to expect large numbers
of White teachers to develop biethnic, multiethnic, and global
identities; (b) globalism is an inadequate term to describe
fully developed intercultural teaching abilities; and (c) the
continuum moves from ethnic captivity to globalism, thereby
suggesting that culture is a pathology to be replaced by cos-
mopolitan, global perspectives free of culture.
Bennetts (1993) developmental theory of intercultural
sensitivity derived from his work with sojourners abroad,
notably Peace Corps volunteers from the United States. He
described a six-stage continuum, moving from ethnocentri-
cism to ethnorelativism, to explain how cross-cultural
immersion affects the identity development of these pred-
ominantly native-born, White Americans; however, the
cross-cultural experiences facing Peace Corps volunteers are
far deeper and more extensive than those experienced by
most teachers in North America, making it difficult to gener-
alize across these two very different populations.
That said, to date, research and theories on intercultural
teaching continue to derive from either Bennetts or Bankss
developmental models: Bennetts in adult and international
education and Bankss in K-12, at least in the United States.
Stiers (2003) used Bankss model to propose a framework
to support international student exchanges in higher edu-
cation, and Heyward (2002) developed a framework for
intercultural literacy (pp. 15-16) for international schools
that targeted six stages from monocultural to cross-cultural
to intercultural (bicultural/transcultural) literacies. These frame-
works focus on learners rather than teachers, on international
education, and on the development of theoretical models with
limited empirical support.
Gays (2002) culturally responsive teaching frame-
work identifies four cultural competencies: (a) a
knowledge base, (b) relevant curricula, (c) cultural caring
and a learning community, and (d) classroom instruction.
With the exception of Ladson-Billings (1995), most of
this U.S.-based scholarship is not evidence based. Like-
wise, this scholarship lacks sufficient critical commentary
about culture and cultural inequities. Curriculum is, after
all, never culturally neutral (Kanu, 2006); cultural norms
pervade explicit and hidden curricula that teachers
cannot easily address within hierarchical school systems
(Beckett & MacPherson, 2005; MacPherson, 2006). As
Kanu (2007) concluded in her study of Canadian Aborigi-
nal students, It is one thing to integrate Aboriginal
perspectives into the school curriculum but quite another
to ensure that all Aboriginal students, particularly those
who are socio-economically disadvantaged, are actually
in the classroom to benefit from such integration (p. 38).
Intercultural Teaching Competencies
In other scholarship, researchers have identified intercul-
tural teaching competencies in the absence of a framework to
understand how the various competencies interact and inter-
relate. These competencies include teachers attitudes, cultural
responsiveness, curriculum and instruction, intercultural
communication, and critical orientations.
MacPherson 273
Attitudes
Teachers empathy was found to increase sensitivity to other
cultures (Germain, 1998), to enhance intercultural teaching
abilities (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Gordon, 1999), and to
create supportive, student-centered classrooms with positive
interactions (McAllister & Irvine, 2002). Yet, Tellez (2008)
found that empathy could interfere with another attitude: the
ability to maintain high expectations and standards for all stu-
dents, including minority learners (Hodges, 1996). Also, Brock,
Moore, and Parks (2007) found that the most effective teach-
ers attributed ineffective lessons to their own teaching, whereas
the less effective teachers blamed the students.
Cultural Responsiveness
Kanus (2007) study found that the academic performance
of Canadian Aboriginal students improved when Aboriginal
cultural knowledge and perspectives were integrated into the
curriculum. The interventions resulted in improved test scores,
conceptual understanding, thinking, self-confidence, and atten-
dance rates for students from stable home environments. Yet,
the key factor explaining the change was the teachers knowl-
edge, attitude, expectations, and personal and instructional
styles (p. 38), which suggests that the findings arose because
of the teachers disposition and efforts rather than the curricu-
lar innovations per se.
Curriculum and Instruction
Mushi (2004) arranged the cultural classroom activities
used by preservice teachers into eight levels, from no cross-
cultural content to culture-to-culture to global activities.
The highest identified individual to global perspective
activity involved examining and discussing characteristics
of the different plants of the world, weather, people, [and]
uses of the plants. In contrast, a beginner awareness activ-
ity involved inviting an important visitor from another
culture to class to ask questions of interest (p. 191). This
ranking, based on the researchers interpretation of Bankss
theory, contradicts a key, compelling tenet of intercultural
development theory: that intercultural development transpires
most effectively through direct and supported cross-cultural
contacts, rather than through mere information (MacPherson,
2005; Wihak & Merali, 2007). For example, according to
Bennetts theory, activities involving direct cross-cultural
contacts (e.g., the important visitor) would be superior to
more abstract activities involving mere information like
comparisons of plants around the globe. There is a question-
able assumption that global competencies necessarily exist
on the same continuum as intercultural competencies; whereas
it is possible that a geophysicist, for example, who qualifies
as a global citizen, might lack any effective intercultural
abilities or awareness.
Communication and Language
Intercultural communicative competencies that affect teach-
ing include intercultural instructional conversations (Tellez,
2008), cross-cultural listening (Schultz, 2003), and power
dynamics (Boler, 2004). Likewise for learners, Kim, Lujan,
and Dixon (1998a, 1998b) found correlations between intercul-
tural communication and objective and subjective indicators of
well-being among Aboriginal adults in Oklahoma, thereby
suggesting that learners stand to benefit significantly from
intercultural classrooms and teachers. Some of the specific
communicative abilities required to work with diverse learners
include bilingual, dual-language, and content-based teaching
(Cummins, 2008; Thomas & Collier, 2001). Second-language
teachers need to recognize World Englishes and nonnative
speakers as normative (Alptekin, 2002; Corbett, 2003; LoBi-
anco, Liddicoat, & Crozet, 1999; MacPherson, 2006;
MacPherson et al., 2004). Heritage language teachers need
access to locally developed intercultural resources (Naqvi,
2008), just as mainstream teachers need access to dual lan-
guage books in early literacy programs, which have been found
to enhance multilingual awareness for all learners (Naqvi,
Coburn, Goddard, & Mayer, 2007).
Critical Perspectives
Mueller and OConnor (2007) found little evidence that
middle-class, mostly White preservice teachers were aware
of their power and privilege; instead, the teachers credited
their accomplishments to their own ability and personal
effort (p. 844). They explained discrepancies between their
achievement and the achievement of minority interviewees
by the value that the minority culture placed on education.
This implies that cultural deficit assumptions persist in new
teachers. Mujawamariya and Mahrouse (2004) found that
preservice teachers were ostensibly void of any awareness
of systemic barriers, power, or issues of social justice
(p. 346). The candidates voiced liberal notions of egalitarian-
ism to dismiss cultural differences: Lets not make cultural
diversity our main concern rather than the similarities
between all (p. 346). As Gatimu (2009) argues, This kind of
interpretation subverts the original goals of multicultural
education as a transformative movement (p. 47). On the
other hand, critical multicultural education discourse tends
to ignore culture altogether or reduce it to race or ethnicity
(Davis, 2001), thereby ignoring less visible dimensions of
culture like religion, lifestyle, and epistemology.
Intercultural Teaching as Decision Making
Intercultural development theories call for attitudinal trans-
formations beyond the scope or possibility of most preservice
teacher education programs. So, as Sleeter (2001) suggests,
Working to improve white attitudes should not become a
diversion from selecting and preparing the excellent, cultur-
ally responsive teachers that historically underserved schools
need (p. 102). In this respect, there is a need to shift from a
focus on teacher identity and attitudes to decision making in
intercultural teacher preparation. To do so would enable tea-
chers to participate in professional induction into intercultural
teaching practices without having to achieve the relatively
rare intercultural developmental stage described in intercul-
tural development theories.
Although there are no prior studies to date on teachers
intercultural decision making, there is a related study on
teacher inductees decision making in early literacy educa-
tion. Maloch et al. (2003) compared the decision making of
73 newly graduated reading specialists from programs rec-
ognized for excellence with a control of 28 generalist teachers
from other programs. The specialist graduates showed sig-
nificantly more responsive and mindful teaching in three
areas. They (77%) demonstrated more attention to context-
and content-oriented decisions than controls (21%), who
focused on materials-oriented decisions. They (66%) negoti-
ated professional identities within, and often against, school
cultures, in contrast to controls (21%), who were more acce-
pting of school norms and cultures. Finally, they (76%)
belonged to professional learning communities that extended
outside the school and included ongoing contact with preser-
vice programs, in contrast to controls (37%), whose supports
tended to be school based.
Intercultural teaching scholarship is in need of a frame-
work to integrate the various competencies, orientations, and
critical consciousness associated with effective intercultural
teaching. Such a framework needs to be grounded in teacher
decision making rather than in deep teacher identity dynamics
that require radical transformative educational interventions
beyond the scope or means of most preservice teacher educa-
tion programs. This research was undertaken to contribute to
the development of just such an empirically grounded inter-
cultural teaching framework by investigating online
collaborative conversations between teachers about critical
intercultural incidents encountered by preservice teachers
during school experiences. Findings focus on the critical inter-
cultural incidents and how the participating teachers
(preservice, inservice, and university) negotiated, recounted,
and interpreted decision making in the process of responding
to these incidents.
Method
In a pilot diversity/antiracist teacher education program in
Toronto, Volante and Earl (2002) reported that all participat-
ing preservice teachers identified an unsupportive sponsor
teacher as a major obstacle to implementing the progressive
teaching philosophies they had learned at the university. Like-
wise, Haberman and Post (1992) and Reed (1993) found that
field experiences reinforced, rather than reduced, stereotypic
attitudes. So, it is not surprising that Wiggins, Follo, and
Eberly (2007) found that combining intercultural university
coursework with supported field placements in diverse
classrooms generated more culturally responsive teachers.
Accordingly, we selected a collaborative action research des-
ign to enhance communication across the divide between the
university and practicum experiences.
Derived from participatory action research (Wadsworth,
1998), collaborative action research links researchers across
institutions (schools, universities, government) to improve
education. This design has been identified as an effective
professional development strategy in both diverse urban schools
(Hodges, 1996) and professional development schools
(Darling-Hammond, 2005). The success of this method lies
in its ability to negotiate educational change through the
process of research while inviting multiple stakeholders and
perspectives into the research process. We used an induc-
tive, constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz,
2006; Clarke, 2005) to generate, collect, and interpret data
to enable us to begin to develop a theoretical framework in
the field. We focused on unearthing teachers experience[s]
within embedded, hidden networks, situations, and relation-
ships, making visible hierarchies of power, communication,
and opportunity (Creswell, 2007, p. 65).
To conduct the ensuing inductive, collaborative research
conversations, we partnered university teacher educators with
preservice teachers and collaborating teachers deemed exp-
erts in intercultural teaching. Each unit of three teachers
dialogued together in weekly, confidential, Web-based con-
versations about critical intercultural incidents identified by
the teacher candidate during their practicum experiences. We
used open-ended, naturalistic conversations rather than struc-
tured interviews or dialogues to offer participants more inductive,
flexible forums to remember, document, and analyze their
intercultural decision-making processes. The online conver-
sations became both think alouds about past intercultural
decision making and discursive artifacts of the negotiated
decision-making processes involved in interpreting critical
intercultural incidents together, including identifying key cri-
teria and principles of effective intercultural teaching.
Research Site(s)
The research was conducted in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in
Canada. The Province of Manitoba (2008) has a small popu-
lation (slightly more than 1 million), a strong economy, and
a low cost of living. Federal and provincial immigration pol-
icies have led to a dramatic increase in immigration to the
province in the past decade, from about 3,700 in 1998 to
11,000 by 2007, making it the fastest rate of immigration in
the country for this period. Manitoba is also home to Indig-
enous and Aboriginal communities (e.g., Ojibwa, Cree, Metis),
which are experiencing dramatic urban migration and rising
birth rates (Norris & Clatworthy, 2003). The combined influx
of immigrants and Aboriginals into Winnipeg has created
unique diversity challenges. Nowhere are these challenges
MacPherson 275
more evident than in schools, where many immigrant and
Aboriginal children find themselves submerged in main-
stream classes that lack the resources for them to participate
fully in the curriculum.
The participating university teacher education program
offers a 2-year, postdegree program with 24 weeks of school
experiences. There are two practicum blocks a year. The pre-
service teachers in this study were all in their 2nd year and
had completed a required School and Society course with a
cross-cultural focus in Year 1. All early years candidates took
a required Multilanguage Development course at the end of
the first term of Year 2 and some across streams took elective
courses in Cross-Cultural Education or Teaching English as
an Additional Language/Teaching English as a Second Lan-
guage. Three schools in the Winnipeg area served as sites for
the study, with one school from each of three school districts,
each at a different level (early, middle, senior years). The
schools were selected from the pool of practicum schools
because of their diverse student populations. All participat-
ing expert teachers were employed at the schools.
Research Participants
All participants were also researchers who participated in
the design and interpretive stages of the study. Three criteria
were used to identify expert intercultural collaborating teach-
ers: (a) teacher leadership in diversity education, (b) proven
success teaching diverse learners, and/or (c) minority student
advocacy. Convenience sampling was used to select the pre-
service teachers, who were preassigned to the collaborating
schools or expert teachers. We chose two preservice and two
expert teachers per school to enhance collaboration (Sorensen,
2004; Woodin, 2001). The six preservice teachers were White,
native English speakers, which reflects the majority of stu-
dents in the program and in the teaching force. All collaborating
teachers were White: one male and five female.
Five education professors and one graduate research assis-
tant (GRA) participated as university teachers in the Web-based
conversations. Of the six, five were men and one was a woman;
four were White, one Metis, and one a Filipino Canadian.
They were partnered with students outside the streams in which
they taughtearly years (K-4), middle years (5-8), and senior
years (9-12)to reduce their power relationship. Each preser-
vice teacher was partnered with an expert collaborating teacher
and teacher educator to form a research unit. The two research
units at each school were partnered with a graduate research
assistant to form a research pod. The three research pods and
two additional investigators constituted the research team.
Data Collection and Interpretation
Preservice teachers described at least one critical intercul-
tural incident they encountered during their practicum that
week on the Web-CT discussion board. A critical intercul-
tural incident was defined as (a) a positive aha! moment,
(b) a negative conflicting event, or (c) a seemingly neutral
event that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. They entered
each incident as a thread that included a description of the
critical intercultural incident; why they considered it critical;
and what it suggested to them about intercultural teaching.
All three members of the research unit and the GRA then
discussed the incident in a distinctive thread. No guidelines
for comments were provided. Each research unit met face to
face at the end of each practicum to identify key focused
codes, and the research pod met at the end of each term to
identify common categories and codes across units. The
GRAs taped, transcribed, and took notes at the face to face.
Participation levels varied, producing between 15 and 25
distinct threads and hundreds of entries. There were no gaps
in the weekly entries.
To analyze the findings, participant researchers focused
on two questions: (a) What did we learn about intercultural
teaching through the incidents and ensuing online conversa-
tions? (b) What did we learn about how teachers learn to teach
diverse learners more effectively? Early in the second term
and at the end of the final term, the research team was invited
to a meeting to develop specific codes and categories across
the data for a coding paradigm. In this meeting, we printed,
separated, and regrouped entries under overarching themes,
codes, and topics. These culminated in five categories: inter-
cultural classrooms, curriculum, teachers, learners, and teacher
education. We revisited these categories again later and iden-
tified the organizing concept negotiating intercultural decision
making as the integrating concept. Following Charmaz (2006),
the data were recoded to use active gerunds as minding and
responding decision making (see Figure 1).
Findings
As Figure 1 indicates, the findings were integrated under
the overarching category of negotiating intercultural deci-
sion making to reflect how the teachers negotiated diverse
cultures in schools and conducted collaborative decision
making when facing critical intercultural incidents. The data
fell into two distinctive subgroups: (a) minding processes
through attention, reflection, awareness, and critical think-
ing; and (b) responding processes as empathy, compassion,
action, and the willingness and ability to respond and to
assume responsibility. Note that E.Y., M.Y., and S.Y. stand
for early, middle, and senior years streams, respectively.
Minding Decision Making
The gerund minding refers to mindfulness, thinking, to
mind (to object), and to mind (to watch over). It involves
the act of paying attention and learning through inquiry and
reflection. As Figure 2 shows, four acts of intercultural
minding in teaching were identified: making choices, enabling
languages and cultures, respecting and sharing power, and arbi-
trating and agonizing what is just. Overall, the findings suggest
that minding decision-making activities in diverse schools
were more apparent in early years (elementary) and middle
years schools. There were far fewer instances of such deci-
sion making in the secondary level pod.
Making choices. Findings suggest that intercultural teach-
ing involves being aware and making choices about materials,
curriculum, interactions, and other aspects of school life that
might otherwise be ignored. It involves content- and context-
oriented choices that are not reducible to a formulaic set of
guidelines, rules, or methodologies, just as Maloch et al.
(2003) found in the decision making of early literacy special-
ists. Although there were incidents and/or discussions about
content- and context-oriented choices in all six units, the pre-
ponderance of these incidents and discussions was in the two
early years (elementary) groups.
Reassessing past choices in materials, resources, and activ-
ities on the basis of changing student demographics and shifting
sensibilities emerged as a theme in the data. The following
incident and the teachers response indicate how she made
content-oriented choices to respond to and skillfully redirect
classroom interactions:
E.Y. preservice: The teacher . . . read the students a
chapter from a class novel The Cricket in Times
Square. . . . The text is written to articulate the
mans Chinese accent. When the teacher read this
piece, one student in the class raised their hand and
asked, Why does he talk so weird? The teacher
asked, Does anyone have any idea why Sai Fongs
words sound different? Conversation was around
accents, and how people from around the world
have different accents.
E.Y. teacher response: It has been years since I read
the book, and I had known it was a wonderful story
but had forgotten about the part we are referring
to. I will put the novel away permanently after this
reading. I dont feel that comfortable with it.
This teacher was able to respond to evolving standards of
equity and respect by deciding to change the materials and
resources she used in the classroom. The outdated picture
books and textbooks used in many schools pressure tea-
chers to use resources that depict other people, cultures,
and histories in problematic ways. One alternative is to
turn outdated or inappropriate representations into a critical
teaching opportunity, as this teacher did. An alternative
is to stop using the resource altogether, as she also deci-
ded to do.
Making
Choices
Enabling
Languages
& Cultures
Respecting
& Sharing
Power
Abritrating
& Agonizing
What is Just
Minding
Decision-Making
Fostering
Intercultural
Communities
Opening
Safe
Spaces
Protecting
Students &
Surroundings
Stepping Up
to
Address It
Responding
Decision-Making
Negotiating
Decision-Making
in Intercultural Teaching
Figure 1. A framework for intercultural teaching
I wil put the
novel away
permanently
Making
Content
Decisions
Painting a
turban on his
self-portrait
Making
Context
Decisions
Making
Choices
Teacher as
anthro-
pologist
Enabling
New Teacher
Identities
Teaching as
sharing
circle
Enabling
Culture
Sharing
Enabling
Languages
& Cultures
Aboriginal
Seven
Teachings
Respecting
The song
is not
African
Sharing
Power
Respecting
& Sharing
Power
After recess
one day...
Arbitrating
Restitutions
We do not
treat people
like this
Agonizing
Interventions
& Sanctions
Arbitrating
& Agonizing
What is Just
Minding
Decision-Making
Figure 2. Minding decision making in intercultural teaching
MacPherson 277
Intercultural teachers also made context-oriented choices
based on interpreting the curriculum uniquely to accommo-
date particular learners and their cultural and linguistic
preferences or needs. In the following incident, for example,
the preservice teacher supports a Sikh boy when he reinter-
preted the rules of an art lesson:
E.Y. preservice: Students were told not to paint their
hair or anything like that, just to paint the outline
of their head and the facial features. I think it was
important for the boy to paint the turban on his
self-portrait. Clearly this is an important, signifi-
cant part of his culture if he felt that he should paint
it on his portrait.
Enabling languages and cultures. The teachers enabled mul-
tiple expressions of culture in their classrooms by exploring
new professional identities in themselves to diffuse the cul-
tural center or norms of the classroom, thereby facilitating
cultural sharing. This type of decision-making activity was
more common in the early and middle years incidents and
discussions. The teachers showed a willingness to develop
alternative professional identities and teaching styles from
traditional teacher-centered approaches, thereby shifting
from a teacher-as-expert to teacher-as-facilitator. In doing
so, they relinquished proprietary rights over the culture of
the classroom, recognizing that the classroom culture bel-
onged to everyone in the class as an intersection of their
various cultures, values, and interests. These teachers became
ethnographers entering classrooms and schools as unfamil-
iar cultures or fields, thereby allowing the cultures and
intercultural dynamics of the class to emerge.
In the following incident, an early years teacher made
efforts to learn hello in Tagalog and so opened a multilin-
gual space for students to exchange knowledge of diverse
languages:
E.Y. teacher: J and A responded in Tagalog during
morning call-back one day. . . . I tried to repeat
the word back to them, and they corrected my pro-
nunciation (smiling respectfully, they seemed to
really like that I was trying). The next day, other
children said hello in different languages dur-
ing call-back. It was delightful! We heard Cree,
German, Punjabi, and more over the next week. The
children were going home and asking their families
to help them respond in different languages.
For some of the participating teachers, this ethnographic
perspective was reinforced through an explicit treatment of
the topic in an elective course on cross-cultural education:
E.Y. GRA: Your reflection brings to mind an approach I
encountered in a course on cross-cultural education:
the teacher as anthropologist. A teacher/anthro-
pologist approaches students with curiosity and in a
non-judgmental way, trying to gain an understanding
of how the students make sense of their worlds. Such
a teacher is working from the assumption that culture
is important and that students may be living in cul-
tural realities that are very different from our own.
By relinquishing professional identities based on authority
and control, the intercultural teachers actively sought out
their students languages and cultures as learning resources
and acquired materials, resources, strategies, and skills to
reflect this:
E.Y. teacher: One of the most important things I can
do as a classroom teacher is to make all children
feel welcome in our classroom. . . . I want the many
different cultures of the world and especially the
cultures of the children in my classroom represent-
ed in the books we share and read together and that
sit on the shelves decorating the classroom.
The teachers didnt position themselves as experts in the
cultures of their students; instead, they turned to alternative
resourcesstudents, community, books, multimediato enrich
the cultural knowledge and life of schools. They showed a
willingness to use alternative pedagogies from other cultures,
as in the following incident in which the teacher applied
an adaptation of an Aboriginal sharing circle to encourage
her students to share, thereby becoming actively involved in
reshaping the classroom as an intercultural space:
M.Y. preservice teacher: This week my class had a
sharing circle. It was interesting to look around the
circle and see all of the different cultures and races
coming together to share ideas and personal in-
formation with each other. The students were not
afraid to share with each other, and the atmosphere
was very welcoming and safe.
Respecting and sharing power. There was a preponderance of
incidents and discussions in the middle years pod on respecting
and sharing power in intercultural teaching through inviting
alternative curriculum or community experts into the class-
room or school. Shifting cultural frames or experts can enable
new forms of knowledge and epistemologies, which are either
neglected or minimized within conventional secular Western
pedagogical norms. In the following example, the schools
attempts to respect the first (Aboriginal) peoples inspired the
adolescent students interest in respect:
M.Y. preservice: This past week there was a school
wide assembly held. It was based on one of the Ab-
original Seven Teachingsthe teaching of respect.
Looking around the assembly one would see a vast
variety of color, culture, ethnicity, and race. It was
an amazing experience to watch the students learn
about respecting each other and actually listen to
what they were being taught.
The intercultural teachers showed respect for students,
their communities, and other cultures. By relinquishing their
status as cultural experts, they showed a willingness to
share their power as cultural and knowledge experts and so
empowered students and their communities. This invited the
use of more inquiry-based approaches in which cultures and
cultural knowledge became open to question through research
rather than mere information or an answer. The ensuing
uncertainty or debates over what was true or what was not
true invited further inquiry:
M.Y. preservice: In music class, the students were
learning an African song, according to the teacher,
who later informed me that it was Ugandan. One
student is from Sierra Leone. She was adamant that
the song is not African. When I asked how she
knew, she just shrugged and said the words were not
African. I showed her a map of Africa and pointed
out how big it was with many different cultures, but
she still wasnt convinced.
Arbitrating and Agonizing What Is Just
We found evidence in incidents across units of teachers
assuming the role of social justice workers arbitrating and
agonizing over the harassing and prejudicial behavior of
children and youth toward their ethnic minority peers and
promoting the use of restitutions, interventions, and sanc-
tions. They persevered in ensuring that the wrongdoing was
addressed and corrected and that the victim participated in
the restitution process. This is not to say that what consti-
tutes restitution is obvious; it is often subtle and uncertain,
as in the following example:
E.Y. teacher: After recess one day, a child came in
upset and he told me that another child told him that
he would not be his friend because he wears a tur-
ban. I tried my best to validate his hurt feelings. . . .
I asked the hurt child if he would come with me to
talk with the other boy about what happened. He
agreed. We went to the other child, and I asked the
hurt child to talk about what had happened and how
he felt. I offered the other child a chance to talk
about what happened. He did not deny what he had
said, but he basically said that is what he said and
not much else. With both boys present, I expressed
my concern about such comments, and how any-
thing hurtful, words or actions, have no place at our
school. . . . I talked with the offenders teacher and
administration to see if this was a pattern, . . . and
also to alert them in case of further incidents.
The cruelty of youths can be vicious, even fatal, compared
with that of young children, and yet, secondary teachers
seemed more reluctant to arbitrate or sanction racist, bigoted,
or exclusionary behavior. In the following incident, the teacher
acted immediately to rectify the injustice; however, the remedy
may well have been bitter medicine for the victim insofar as
she then faced sharing a room with her anonymous persecutor:
S.Y. preservice: The band is planning to take a trip
to a camp in two weeks, and students have been
busy signing up for their rooms. One student who
is an ethnic minority in the classroom realized that
her name had been erased from the room that she
had signed up for. She immediately let the teacher
know. . . . The teacher immediately put her name
back on the list and explained to the class that at
the school, we do not treat other people like this. She
further explained that in the band room, we need to
be kind to everyone and not exclude anyone from
anything.
The teacher described in this incident was not a participant
in the study. Although she intervened to redress the unjust
act, she did not negatively sanction the offenders and so left
the victim vulnerable to future repercussions. A more just
resolution is uncertain and open to interpretation; if nothing
else, this teacher needed to agonize over her decision, to
seek out a more just resolution through negotiations, which
may have taken time and led her beyond the perpetrator. To
agonize over the decision would involve acknowledging the
pain, suffering, isolation, and potential scars that such an
incident could have inflicted on this victim.
Responding Decision Making
Responding decisions are responses to events in the envi-
ronment, in contrast to minding decisions that arise through
introspection. Minding decisions require awareness and inten-
tion, but responding decisions do not; as a consequence,
responding decisions demand even more of a teachers
attention to alter or change. The data are organized under four
subcategories: fostering intercultural communities; opening
safe spaces; protecting students and surroundings; and step-
ping up to address it, which are depicted with their cases in
Figure 3. The responses in this category were more evenly dis-
tributed across the units and pods (i.e., school levels).
Fostering intercultural communities. A teachers resp-
onsibility for transforming a classroom into an intercultural
community can be described as fostering, fostering both
communities and relations. Some incidents conveyed the
MacPherson 279
unique learning communities in these diverse schools. The
teachers role in generating and sustaining such a community
was unclear:
M.Y. student: During one event where each team
member had to blow a bubble with bubblegum . . .
someone noticed that a boy hadnt gone yet, but
his friend spoke up and said, Hes fasting so Im
going to blow the bubble instead. No one on the
team was fazed. They all seemed to know what fast-
ing was. No one teased him. It was just a fact and
not one that anyone seemed to see as different. The
students on the team . . . came from First Nations
background, Eastern European, Central or South
American, [East] Indian, etc.
Yet, peer relations alone dont make a classroom or school
a learning community; interactions between adults and stu-
dents play an important role in such communities. So, questions
of which adults and communities are, or feel, included become
important challenges for intercultural teachers and schools.
In the following example, a GRA who is also a principal
shares the strategies developed in the GRAs rural school to
reach out to diverse communities:
M.Y. GRA: At the school where I work, we have hired
a full time person called a home-school liaison who
speaks the two predominant languages of our area.
She visits homes personally and when there are
events . . . she personally invites them to the event
and if transportation is a barrier, then she offers to
pick them up.
Intercultural communities are formed through good relations
between members of different cultures. In incidents that des-
cribed positive cross-cultural relationships, again the teachers
roles were indirect or unclear; however, they did encourage a
classroom culture in which students felt free to move outside
their circle so relationships could take root and grow:
S.Y. teacher: Two girls who graduated last year told
me that if they had not been in my class, they would
have always hated the people of each others coun-
try. Why? Their countries were historical enemies
but they had never actually met someone from
the other country. Their friendship became so deep
that they went through considerable trouble and ex-
pense to go visit the other one at home in the sum-
mer. They wouldnt have had this opportunity if
they had stayed in their circle.
Opening safe spaces. Significantly, intercultural teachers
across units and levels created nonjudgmental and safe
spaces in classrooms and schools for all students to negotiate
intercultural learning. The following Grade 2 intercultural
expert teacher, for example, had a policy that no student
would get into trouble for bad behavior if he or she was
willing to discuss the problem. She adopted this policy so
that students had permission to make mistakes, to learn from
those mistakes, and to practice how to interact or to respond
more effectively:
E.Y. GRA (from analysis meeting): A grade two stu-
dent reported that another was calling him a moron
at recess. The second student was asked to come
and discuss his behaviour. At first he denied any
misbehaviour, but then the first student said to him,
Its okay to talk about it. You know you cant get
in trouble in this class.
Intercultural learning is a developmental process that req-
uires time, structured support, and a safe environment in
which to make mistakes and learn. If intercultural values are
treated as a set of politically correct rules or views with overly
vigilant interventions and sanctions, then children may either
retreat or resist. Instead, these intercultural teachers recognized
the value of allowing safe discussion and curricular spaces in
which students could negotiate their perspectives with those
advocated by the teacher and curriculum. This points to the
Hes fasting &
a home/school
liaison
Fostering
Communities
Unlikely
friends
Fostering
Relationships
Fostering
Intercultural
Communities
You cant get
into trouble
in this class
Permission
to Make
Mistakes
Avoiding a
hyper-sensitive
environment
Opening
Discussions
Opening
Safe
Spaces
Restoring a
fallen turban
Protecting
Students
Ages & stages
to talk about
culture
Protecting
Surroundings
Protecting
Students &
Surroundings
He kind of
walked like
a homey
Challenging
Colleagues
Are you
calling the
school racist?
Challenging
Superiors or
the System
Stepping Up
to
Address It
Responding
Decision-Making
Figure 3. Responding decision making in intercultural teaching
power of intercultural teaching to address the needs of all
learners in diversity education, not just minority or
marginalized learners. This senior years preservice teacher
had a related insight during his practicum teaching:
S.Y. preservice: I have noticed that students have ad-
justed to my social policy. I have created a hyper-
sensitive environment for discussion. My original
intention was to create an open, respectful, and safe
environment for expressing ideas. What I have ob-
served in the last week is that students are very wor-
ried they are going to say something offensive. At
least once a day, students would call another student
out for being racist, even if the student was only
mentioning a racial issue or asking a question.
Protecting students and surroundings. When a teacher protects
students in an intercultural context, it isnt physical protection
that is required as much as protecting values, identities and
identifications, and a sense of belonging. There were
instances of protective decision making in all streams, but
particularly in the early years. For younger children, this
type of decision making often involved protecting them at
the same time from sharp and traumatic schisms between
their home and school lives, which can be mitigated when
teachers depend on other students as culture insiders:
E.Y. GRA (from analysis meeting): One teacher
recounted how a Sikh child became upset in the
changing room following gym class when his patka
(turban) fell off. He was crying uncontrollably, but
she didnt know if it was appropriate to touch his
hair to help him put the patka back on his head.
Hesitant to further distress the child by inappropri-
ate actions, she sought the advice of an older Sikh
girl student in the school who told her it was fine.
So, she helped the boy put his patka on, and he
calmed down.
Intercultural teachers were protective of the ambient culture
and class surroundings in which students learn and form com-
munities. In the following entry, for example, an early years
teacher reflects on how to deal with culture-related bullying
in a Grade 2 class and whether or not the students are at an
age yet when they can understand it:
E.Y. teacher: I wonder if P thinks that the bullying is
focused on his differences (he wears a patka), or just
that another child is being mean to him? . . . I am
just curious about Ps perception. Young children
are still quite egocentric, even at seven. At seven,
many children have not had many years out of the
protective surroundings of their families. It has also
been my experience as a teacher of young children,
most children, seven years of age and younger, do
not focus on cultural differences or have negative
views about them (there are exceptions, of course).
I wonder when children really start to feel the sting
of being singled out or treated badly because of cul-
tural differences.
Stepping up to address it. The critical incidents included
instances of teachers making decisions to correct systemic
racism and discriminatory practices, attitudes, or structures
in schools. In contrast to the previous findings, most of these
incidents and discussions transpired in the senior years pods.
The early years teachers and school strongly emphasized
cooperation, which may have made it difficult for the preser-
vice teachers to challenge, or even to recognize, racist or
cultural problems. Indeed, when the study was being orga-
nized, this pod asked to have a meeting with a researcher
because they didnt think that they had culture or cultural
issues in their school, despite having a large proportion of
Filipino and South Asian students. In the middle years pod,
in contrast, one preservice teacher said shed encountered
more problematic practices but was reluctant to discuss them
online given her relative vulnerability as a teacher candidate
on practicum. The senior years pod, in contrast, was the only
site in which the two participating teachers were not the
immediate supervising collaborating teachers of the preser-
vice teachers. So, the practicum was disbursed across various
classrooms and teachers, which may have made at least one
of the preservice teachers feel safer to critique colleagues
and to raise power issues.
One power issue is the challenge that teachers face in
responding to the systemic, covert, or overt discrimination
of students by colleagues. So, although teachers seemed to
intervene without hesitation in student conflicts and inap-
propriate behaviors, they seemed more restrained and hesitant
to respond to inappropriate conduct by colleagues or superi-
ors. In the following incident, the dilemma was intensified
because the observer was a preservice teacher, and so more
vulnerable, and the teacher was Metis (Aboriginal French):
S.Y. preservice: A student who happened to be black
walked up to the teacher [in the middle of class]
and waited for his attention. What can I do for you
homey? exclaimed the teacher. The student didnt
respond. The teacher repeated, How can I help you
homey? At this point the student requested a bath-
room break. No one else in the class took any notice
of this incident. Once the student had left the room,
the teacher turned to the class. Then he commented
on how the student had a funny walk, and how he
kind of walked like a homey. The teacher then
proceeded to imitate the students walk.
S.Y. professor: Do these Grade 10s feel as if they
dont have the power to talk back to a teacher
MacPherson 281
who conducts him or herself inappropriately? Would
they talk back if a fellow student had engaged in
such mockery of a classmate? . . . From a power
perspective, it sounds as if you were not in a posi-
tion to take action as a teacher candidate. . . . If
you had witnessed this kind of interaction between
two students in the school hallway . . . you would
have felt much more comfortable stepping in and
addressing it.
A teacher may accept his or her professional responsibility
and power to intervene in students discriminatory misconduct,
but it is more complicated when it comes to correcting peers,
superiors, and the system. Even in contexts with a clear and
explicit diversity policy and professional ethic (e.g.,
MacPherson et al., 2004), to correct a colleague or superior
may be seen as a breach of collegiality and potential threat to
ones career. Hence, we call this competency stepping up to
address it to convey that the decision and action involve
confronting both power and discrimination. A more technical
word might be advocacy, but when teachers advocate for
minority students or against discrimination in schools, it can
involve considerable risk and hence courage, which is lost in
the word advocacy:
S.Y. teacher: [Once I] commented . . . that some teach-
ers needed to adjust to the changing neighborhood
and become more sensitive to the ethnic diversity
in their classrooms. The principal called me into his
office and asked sternly, was I calling the school
racist? Not consciously, I replied, but theres lots of
work to be done.
Discussion
Through the critical intercultural incidents and the tea-
chers collaborative conversations, eight decision-making
orientations in effective intercultural teaching were identi-
fied: making choices, enabling cultures, respecting and
sharing power, arbitrating and agonizing what is just, fos-
tering intercultural communities, opening safe spaces,
protecting students and surroundings, and stepping up to
address it. Because the findings are derived from only one
North American city, it would be premature to call them a
theory; instead, they offer a developing model or frame-
work with the capacity to form a more robust theory through
further research. The model is unique in that it emerged
inductively through intercultural teachers collaborative
conversations.
Intercultural Teaching as Integrative Ability
The findings suggest that intercultural teaching is an inte-
grative ability that brings into proximity paradoxical, if not
contradictory, elements of teaching in diverse contexts, such
as the following:
Achievement/social cohesion. The findings support many
competencies identified in the literature review with one
notable exception: expecting high achievement for all learn-
ers. It is not that the teachers voiced lower expectations for
minority learners but that they focused disproportionately on
social and emotional learning and avoided achievement
issues altogether. This could indicate a blind spot in the pre-
service teachers who determined the incidents under discussion,
thereby reinforcing Tellezs (2008) findings that new teach-
ers feel challenged in reconciling empathy with high academic
expectations.
There is another possible explanation. Scholarship empha-
sizing high achievement expectations in a multicultural
context tend to come from the United States; as a conse-
quence, our results may be skewed by the sociopolitical
context of Canada and Manitoba with their strong social
democratic orientations. Unlike the United States, Canadas
human rights laws recognize communitarian (language,
culture) rights and boast higher social and educational mobil-
ity indicators for second-generation immigrants than many
Scandinavian countries (Corak, 2009). Accordingly, it may
be that Canadas macro-level political culture reflects micro-
level tendencies in teachers to attend to social cohesion over
individual achievement. Yet, Aboriginal and visible minority
(Jamaican, Haitian) learners do not participate equally in
social mobility in Canada, and so intercultural teachers would
serve social justice outcomes more effectively by holding high
achievement expectations for all learners.
Knowledge/social-emotional learning. Most incidents trans-
pired in informal and nonformal contexts, suggesting that
intercultural teaching may be related to the social and emo-
tional learning (SEL) of teachers rather than their knowledge,
attitudes, or methodologies. The target of SEL is emotional
intelligence, which Daniel Goleman (1998) proposed is devel-
oped through five emotional competencies: self-awareness,
self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy, and peer relations.
How much SEL competencies overlap with intercultural and
intercultural teaching competencies is a question for further
research; however, these and other findings make it clear that
SEL competencies are insufficient to explain the full scope
of effective intercultural teaching.
Sustainability/equity. The findings indicate that cultural sus-
tainability and equity issues overlap in intercultural teaching.
The teachers efforts to protect cultures and cultural identi-
ties enabled students to participate more fully in the learning
community, curriculum, and ultimately, society. SEL theory
might help explain this overlap. If learners cultures are
reflected and protected in schools, then they feel included
and enjoy enhanced social and emotional well-being; in turn,
research suggests that a significant relationship exists between
social-emotional well-being and academic achievement (Zins,
Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004), thereby implying that
intercultural teaching indirectly promotes academic achieve-
ment. That said, cultural sustainability is an intrinsic good
that directly affects well-being (Kim et al., 1998a, 1998b).
Collaboration/autonomy. Finally, the findings indicate that
intercultural teachers, at least at early and middle years levels,
show an increased willingness to collaborate with students,
community members, and colleagues as cultural resources or
experts, while also asserting their autonomy in making choi-
ces and responding to the particular demands of unforeseen
critical intercultural incidents. What reconciles this seeming
paradox is the evident benefit that these teachers derived
from negotiating intercultural decisions within a collabora-
tive learning community.
Curriculum as Intercultural Practice
The findings suggest that when learners from diverse
backgrounds come together, the curriculum becomes an
intercultural practice regardless of the intention of the teacher,
school, district, or system. If the curriculum of diverse schools
is de facto intercultural, it begs the question whether or not
the conscious intention of teachers and the formal curricu-
lum affect learners.
Explicit or implicit curriculum. The intercultural issues are
implicit within the curriculum of any diverse classroom or
school; yet, the intercultural teachers in this study demon-
strated how important it was to make intercultural objectives
explicit. If left as implicit objectives, the conflicts and bully-
ing recounted in some critical intercultural incidents suggest
that forms of social, cultural, and religious exclusion or mar-
ginalization may become the hidden intercultural curriculum,
rather than sustainability, equity, and/or social cohesion.
Formal, informal, and nonformal curricula. Most of the inci-
dents transpired in the informal (classroom conversations and
activities) and nonformal (extracurricular, extra-classroom
conversations), rather than formal, curricula. Although pre-
service teachers were asked explicitly to attend to both
curricular and noncurricular incidents, most of the incidents
transpired outside the formal curriculum. This suggests that
intercultural teaching involves responsibilities well beyond
the narrow confines of curricular objectives and formal inst-
ruction. Also, there may have been more critical intercultural
incidents in the formal curricular context, but the preservice
teachers may have excluded or censored them in case they
implied a veiled or explicit criticism of the collaborating
teacher.
Ages and stages. Distinctive patterns in the incidents and
in the teachers responses to the incidents suggest that both
cultural and intercultural learning may be associated with
certain ages and stages, perhaps even critical periods, in chil-
drens development. This pattern suggests that distinctive
approaches to intercultural decision making may be called
for at different developmental ages and stages. At the same
time, findings suggest that there may be cultural or institutional
structures that inhibit or promote certain types of intercul-
tural decision making that can affect learners positively or
adversely. The tendency of early and middle years intercul-
tural teachers to make decisions to share power with students
and communities could be effectively applied at the senior
level; likewise, early and middle years teachers might bene-
fit from increased willingness to be critical of colleagues and
to critique systemic and institutional discrimination as found
in the senior years discussions.
Intercultural Teaching as Pedagogy
Within incidents dealing with intercultural teaching in the
formal curriculum, there were three primary implications
raised in the findings:
Expanding cultural experts. One trend across the findings
marked the emergence of new professional identities in
intercultural teachers. They sacrificed teacher-centered roles
as experts to enable a more collaborative style to emerge in
which they depended on students and communities for cul-
tural expertise. Furthermore, classes emerged as functional
intercultural learning communities where peers began to
assume what had been a teachers responsibility to under-
stand and protect the cultural practices and identities of
minority students.
Inquiry based. In relying on students and community mem-
bers as cultural resources, intercultural teachers opened the
door to uncertainty and debate over issues of cultural authen-
ticity. In one incident, we saw the intercultural expert middle
year preservice teacher using this uncertainty and apparent
challenge of the teachers cultural authority to inspire an
inquiry-based approach to the learning of culture.
Negotiating Power in Intercultural Teaching
The intercultural teachers had an awareness of their power
to intervene positively in the interpersonal lives and relation-
ships of students. They also recognized the need to share this
power to develop more just and relational learning commu-
nities and to open safe spaces for intercultural dialogues and
learning among students. They showed the willingness to
step up to challenge power when addressing systemic or
local issues of discrimination with colleagues or superiors.
In this respect, intercultural teachers are power brokers adv-
ocating on behalf of potentially marginalized students among
their peers, teachers, and the school administration and system.
Indeed, intercultural teachers advocate for learners beyond
the school, with boards, ministries, higher education institu-
tions, and teachers associations. Challenging school-based
personnel is a risky business for new teachers, yet, if they
learn to overlook problems of discrimination by colleagues
and superiors in the short term, it is difficult to imagine how
they will relearn and find the courage to step up in the long
term.
MacPherson 283
Intercultural Teacher Education
The findings have direct implications for intercultural tea-
cher education.
Case studies. The framework identified eight categories
derived from salient critical intercultural incidents. These
categories make it easy to adapt into a curriculum with cor-
responding case studies on intercultural teaching. The case
studies and framework could easily be translated into a uni-
versity-based course, either Web based or face to face, prior
to field experiences. Once on practicum, preservice teachers
would be familiar with the process to engage in their own
research and conversations about the critical intercultural
incidents that they encounter.
Collaborative inquiry. Most of the researcher participants
expressed surprise at the synergy created through this Web-
based collaborative inquiry. By bringing university educators
together with collaborating and preservice teachers in schools,
a bridge was forged across the often-troubled waters between
schools and universities in teacher preparation. The online
nature of the exchanges overcame the obstacle of space and
time, but the face-to-face meetings helped to forge relation-
ships and further motivate participation.
Limitations
There are a number of limitations to this study worth ide-
ntifying or reiterating. The first is the fact that the research
was conducted in a very specific sociocultural context:
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. With its strong, social-
democratic ambient sociopolitical culture, this context may
have skewed the preservice teachers identification of critical
intercultural incidents and the ensuing conversations about
intercultural decision making in teaching toward activities
affecting social integration and social cohesion rather than
individual achievement. This potential bias could explain the
noticeable lack of attention to expectations for learner
achievement or to formal curricular contents, both of which
tend to be emphasized in U.S. studies, for example, where the
ambient sociopolitical culture tends to be more liberal and
individualistic.
Alternatively, the lack of achievement and formal curric-
ular incidents might stem from a methodological problem:
first, from the use of novice teachers (i.e., cultural outsiders
struggling for acceptance) and/or inservice teachers (i.e.,
cultural insiders) as researchers, and second, from the use of
a collaborative, grounded theory approach that circum-
scribed findings to those issues identified by these teachers.
The study may have reinforced preexisting blind spots that
may have been further rationalized and reinforced through
the conversations and analysis. We did anticipate this limita-
tion and attempted to address it through planning sessions
with all research participants. Although collaborative con-
versations in professional learning communities can offer a
means to enhance teacher awareness, the deceptive power of
identity, class, and professional investments to ignore
systemic injustices in education should not be underesti-
mated. How critical can such conversations be if the
interlocutors are heavily invested in the system? University-
based teachers and tea cher educators may be in a position to
offer more critical and disinterested critiques given their
relative distance from the cultures of schools.
Several preservice participants suggested that there were
incidents and dynamics occurring in classrooms and schools
that they felt reticent and unsafe in identifying and discuss-
ing with collaborating teachers from the school during this
study. So, although the preservice teachers brought an ethno-
graphic eye through their status as relative culture outsiders,
their strong motivation to be accepted into the professional
communities of practice may have made them susceptible to
White-washing or ignoring some of the more disturbing or
troubling incidents or activities. In this respect, the findings
might be richer if the preservice, inservice, and university
teachers intentionally alternate roles as cultural strangers
and cultural (professional) experts.
Conclusion
This study began with the ambitious objective to develop
an empirically grounded model for effective intercultural
teaching. Using an inductive approach for data collection
and analysis, we arrived at a set of eight gerunds or action-
oriented codes or categories that intercultural teachers
use to guide their decision making in teaching diverse
learners. Prior research and models focused on one side of
a teachers attitudepractice binary. Some targeted teach-
ers introspective attitudes: expectations, identity, empathy,
or critical capacity; others targeted their methods, activities, or
performance. This research offers a framework, constructed
out of the experiences and conversations of intercultural teach-
ers, that embeds and integrates these various attitudes and
practices under the overarching idea of teachers negotiating
intercultural decision making. The findings were organized
into two groups: decisions that tend to involve reflecting
(minding) and decisions that involve responding.
The result is the beginning of an integrated model or frame-
work for intercultural teaching with strong efficacy or bases in
the lived experiences of intercultural teachers and schools. By
naming the competencies as gerunds or actsmaking,
enabling, respecting/sharing, arbitrating/agonizing, fostering,
opening, protecting, and stepping upthe model offers teach-
ers a set of intercultural teaching orientations, rather than
prescriptive or proscriptive rules, to guide their decision
making. In this respect, the model recognizes that teaching is
at heart an art, not a science, and that effective teaching
involves creativity and the ability to respond to the lived expe-
rience and context of distinctive learners, classrooms, and
communities. Furthermore, the model and critical intercultural
incidents together offer an effective framework for designing
an integrated intercultural course with a parallel and integrated
intercultural field experience component aimed at scaffolding
new teachers into the art of intercultural teaching.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Dr. Barbara McMillan of the Univer-
sity of Manitoba who contributed substantially to all stages of this
article. In addition, the author would like to thank the research team
at the University of Manitoba and Dr. Anna Kirova of the University
of Alberta, who initiated the larger prairiewide intercultural teaching
research project of which this was a part, and the Metropolis Prairie
Centre, which funded the research.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the authorship and/or publication of this article.
Financial Disclosure/Funding
The Metropolis Project (Prairie Region-Canada) funded the
research; however, the investigator did not receive any personal
compensation in the form of salary or consulting fees.
References
Adler, P. S. (1986). Culture shock and the cross-cultural learning
experience. In L. F. Luce & E. C. Smith (Eds.), Towards inter-
nationalism: Readings in cross-cultural communications (2nd
ed., pp. 24-35). Rowley, MA: Newbury House, Harper & Row.
Alptekin, C. (2002). Towards intercultural communicative compe-
tence in ELT. ELT Journal, 56(1), 57-64.
Banks, J. (1984). Teaching strategies for ethnic studies. Boston:
Allyn & Bacon.
Banks, J. (1994). Multiethnic education: Theory and practice. Need-
ham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Beckett, G., & MacPherson, S. (2005). Researching the impact of
English on minority and Indigenous languages in non-Western
contexts. TESOL Quarterly, 38(2), 299-308.
Bennett, M. J. (1993). Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental
model of intercultural sensitivity. In R. M. Paige (Ed.), Educa-
tion for the intercultural experience (pp. 21-71). Yarmouth, ME:
Intercultural Press.
Boler, M. (Ed.). (2004). Democratic dialogue in education: Trou-
bling speech, disturbing silence. New York: Peter Lang.
Brock, C. H., Moore, D. K., & Parks, L. A. (2007). Exploring pre-
service teachers literacy practices with children from diverse
backgrounds. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23(6), 898-915.
Canadian Teachers Federation. (2004). Teacher supply and demand
series, Vol. V: Elementary and secondary teacher demograph-
ics and characteristics [Restricted distribution]. Economic and
Member Services Bulletin, 2004-2.
Carr, P., & Lund, D. (Eds.). (2007). The Great White North? Explor-
ing Whiteness, privilege, and identity in education. Rotterdam:
Sense Publishers.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory. London: Sage.
Christensen, C. P. (1989). Cross-cultural awareness development:
A conceptual model. Counselor Education and Supervision,
28(4), 270-289.
Clarke, A. E. (2005). Situational analysis: Grounded theory after
the postmodern turn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Corak, M. (2009, March 19-22). The children of immigrants: The
ultimate barometer of the success/failure of integration and
inclusion? Plenary presentation at the 11th National Metropolis
Conference: Frontiers of Canadian Migration, Calgary, AB.
Corbett, J. (2003). An intercultural approach to English language
teaching. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design:
Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cummins, J. (2008). Basic interpersonal communicative skills and
cognitive academic language proficiency (BICS and CALP).
Toronto, ON: University of Toronto. Retrieved March 18, 2009,
from http://www.iteachilearn.com/cummins/bicscalp.html
Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). How teacher education matters.
Journal of Teacher Education, 51, 166-173.
Darling-Hammond, L. (Ed.). (2005). Professional development
schools: Schools for developing a profession (Reissue). New
York: Teachers College Press.
Davis, C. P. (2001). The evolution of pedagogical changes in a multi-
cultural context: Journey of a university professor. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Friesen, J., & Friesen, V. (2002). Aboriginal education in Canada:
A plea for integration. Calgary, AB: Detselig Enterprises.
Gatimu, M. (2009). Undermining critical consciousness unconsci-
ously: Restoring hope in the multicultural education idea. Journal
of Educational Change, 10(1), 47-61.
Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Jour-
nal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 106-116.
Germain, M. H. (1998). Worldly teachers: Cultural learning and
pedagogy. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New
York: Bantam.
Gordon, G. (1999). Teacher talent and urban schools. Phi Delta
Kappan, 81, 304-306.
Gouvernement du Qubec Ministre de lducation. (1998).
A school for the future: Policy statement on educational inte-
gration and intercultural educationA new direction for suc-
cess. Retrieved March 15, 2009, from www.meq.gouv.qc.ca/
REFORME/int_scol/Bro_a.pdf
Gundara, J. S., & Portera, A. (2008). Theoretical reflections on
intercultural education. Intercultural Education, 19(6), 463-468.
Haberman, M., & Post, L. (1992). Does direct experience change
education students perceptions of low-income minority stu-
dents? Midwest Educational Researcher, 5(2), 29-31.
Helms, J. E. (1990). Black and White racial identity: Theory,
research, and practice. New York: Greenwood Press.
Heyward, M. (2002). From international to intercultural: Redefin-
ing the international school for a globalized world. Journal of
Research in International Education, 1(1), 9-32.
Hodges, H. (1996). Using research to inform practice in urban schools:
10 key strategies for success. Educational Policy, 10(2), 223-252.
Hogan, M. (2008). A tale of two Noras: How a Yupik middle schooler
was differently constructed as a math learner. Diaspora, Indige-
nous, and Minority Education, 2(2), 1-25.
MacPherson 285
Kanu, Y. (Ed.). (2006). Curriculum as cultural practice: Postco-
lonial imaginations. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Kanu, Y. (2007). Increasing school success among Aboriginal stu-
dents: Culturally responsive curriculum or macrostructural vari-
ables affecting schooling? Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority
Education, 1(1), 21-41.
Kim, Y. Y., Lujan, P., & Dixon, L. (1998a). I can walk both ways:
Identity integration of American Indians in Oklahoma. Human
Communications Research, 25, 252-274.
Kim, Y. Y., Lujan, P., & Dixon, L. (1998b). Patterns of communi-
cation and interethnic integration: A study of American Indians
in Oklahoma. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 22(1),
120-137.
Kleinfeld, J. (1995). Effective teachers of Eskimo and Indian stu-
dents. In L. Roberts & R. A. Clifton (Eds.), Cross-currents: Con-
temporary Canadian educational issues (pp. 68-96). Toronto,
ON: Nelson Canada.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Towards a theory of culturally relevant ped-
agogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465-491.
LoBianco, J., Liddicoat, A., & Crozet, C. (1999). Striving for the
third place: Intercultural competence through language educa-
tion. Melbourne: The National Languages and Literacy Institute
of Australia.
MacPherson, S. (2005). Negotiating language contact and identity
change in a bilingual Tibetan/English program. TESOL Quar-
terly, 39(4), 585-607.
MacPherson, S. (2006). To STEAL or to TELL: Teaching English
in the global era. In Y. Kanu (Ed.), Curriculum as cultural prac-
tice: Postcolonial imaginations (pp. 71-94). Toronto, ON: Uni-
versity of Toronto Press.
MacPherson, S., Turner, D., Khan, R., Hingley, W., Tigchelaar,
M., & Dustan, L. (2004). ESL and Canadian multiculturalism:
A mandate for multilingual, intercultural ESL for the 21st cen-
tury. TESL Canada Journal, 21(3), 1-22.
Maloch, B., Flint, A. S., Eldridge, D., Harmon, I., Loven, R.,
Fine, J. C., et al. (2003). Understandings, beliefs, and reported
decision-making for different reading teacher preparation pro-
grams. The Elementary School Journal, 103(5), 431-458.
McAllister, G., & Irvine, J. J. (2000). Cross-cultural competency and
multicultural teacher education. Review of Educational Research,
70(1), 3-24.
McAllister, G., & Irvine, J. J. (2002). The role of empathy in teach-
ing culturally diverse students: A qualitative study of teachers
beliefs. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(5), 433-443.
Meyer, M. (1991). Developing transcultural competence: Case
studies of advanced foreign language learners. In D. Buttjes &
M. Byram (Eds.), Mediating languages and cultures: Towards
an intercultural theory of foreign language education (pp. 136-158).
Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Mueller, J., & OConnor, C. (2007). Telling and retelling about
self and others: How preservice teachers (re)interpret privi-
lege and disadvantage in one college classroom. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 23, 840-856.
Mujawamariya, D., & Mahrouse, G. (2004). Multicultural edu-
cation in Canadian preservice programs: Teacher candidates
perspectives. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 50(4),
336-353.
Mushi, S. (2004). Multicultural competencies in teaching: A typology
of classroom activities. Intercultural Education, 15(2), 179-194.
Naqvi, R. (2008). From peanut butter to Eid . . . Blending perspec-
tives: Teaching Urdu to children in Canada. Diaspora, Indig-
enous, and Minority Education, 2(2), 154-164.
Naqvi, R., Coburn, H., Goddard, S., & Mayer, L. (2007). Speak-
ing in tongues: What do I do when 80% of my students dont
speak English? Alberta Teachers Association Magazine, 87(4).
Retrieved May 2008 from http://www.teachers.ab.ca/Quick%20
Links/Publications/Magazine/Volume%2087/Number%204/
Articles/Pages/Speaking%20in%20Tongues.aspx
Norris, M. J., & Clatworthy, S. (2003). Aboriginal mobility and
migration within urban Canada: Outcomes, factors and impli-
cations. In D. Newhouse & E. Peters (Eds.), Not strangers in
these parts: Urban aboriginal peoples (pp. 51-78). Ottawa, ON:
Policy Research Initiative.
Portera, A. (2008). Intercultural education in Europe: Epistemo-
logical and semantic aspects. Intercultural Education, 19(6),
481-491.
Province of Manitoba. (2008). Manitoba, labour and immigration.
Manitoba Immigration Facts: 2007 Statistical Report. Retrieved
April 6, 2009, from http://www2.immigratemanitoba.com/asset
_library/en/resources/pdf/mif07.pdf
Reed, D. F. (1993). Multicultural education for preservice students.
Action in Teacher Education, 15(3), 27-34.
Rey, M. (2006). The Council of Europe and the field of intercul-
tural education. In A. Portera (Ed.), Educazione interculturale
nel contesto internazionale (pp. 101-106). Milan: Guerini.
Schultz, K. (2003). Listening: A framework for teaching across dif-
ference. New York: Teachers College Press.
Sleeter, C. (2001). Preparing teachers for culturally diverse schools:
The overwhelming presence of Whiteness. Journal of Teacher
Education, 52(2), 94-106.
Solomon, P., Portelli, J. P., Daniel, B.-J., & Campbell, A. (2005).
The discourse of denial: How White teacher candidates con-
struct race, racism, and White privilege. Race, Ethnicity and
Education, 8(2), 147-169.
Sorensen, P.D. (2004). Learning to teach collaboratively: The use
of subject pairs in the school practicum. Canadian Journal of
Educational Administration and Policy, University of Manitoba.
Retrieved July 1, 2004, from http://www.umanitoba.ca/publications/
cjeap/pdf%20files/sorensen.pdf
Stier, J. (2003). Internationalisation, ethnic diversity and the acqui-
sition of inter-cultural competencies. Journal for Intercultural
Education, 14(1), 77-91.
Tellez, K. (2008). What student teachers learn about multicul-
tural education from their cooperating teachers. Teaching and
Thomas, W., & Collier, V. (2001). A national study of school effec-
tiveness for language minority students long-term academic
achievement. Berkeley, CA: Center for Research on Education,
Diversity & Excellence. Retrieved from http://www.crede.ucsc
.edu/research/llaa/1.1_final.html
Volante, L., & Earl, L. (2002). Teacher candidates perceptions of
conceptual orientations in their preservice program. Canadian
Journal of Education, 27(4), 419-438.
Wadsworth, Y. (1998). What is participatory action research? Ret-
rieved June 12, 2009, from http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/
ar/ari/p-ywadsworth98.html
Wiggins, R. A., Follo, E. J., & Eberly, M. B. (2007). The impact
of a field immersion program on preservice teachers attitudes
toward teaching in culturally diverse classrooms. Teaching and
Wihak, C., & Merali, F. (2007). Racial/cultural identity: Trans-
formation among school based mental health professionals
working in Nunavut. Canadian Journal of Education, 30(1),
291-322.
Woodin, J. (2001). Tandem learning as an intercultural activity.
In M. Byram, A. Nichols, & D. Stevens (Eds.), Developing
intercultural competence in practice (pp. 189-202). Bristol,
UK: Multilingual Matters.
Zins, J., Weissberg, R., Wang, M., & Walberg, H. (2004). Building
academic success on social and emotional learning: What does
the research say? New York: Teachers College Press.
About the Author
Seonaigh MacPherson, PhD, teaches and researches TESOL and
second language acquisition at the British Columbia Institute of
Technology in Vancouver, Canada. She is a coeditor, with Zvi
Bekerman, of the scholarly journal Diaspora, Indigenous, and
Minority Education.

Journal of Teacher Education 2010 MacPherson 271 86

Încărcat de

Informații document

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Journal of Teacher Education 2010 MacPherson 271 86

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

http://jte.sagepub.

American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)

http://jte.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts:

- Dec 29, 2009 OnlineFirst Version of Record

- Dec 30, 2009 OnlineFirst Version of Record

- Jan 19, 2010 OnlineFirst Version of Record

- Apr 30, 2010 Version of Record >>

S-ar putea să vă placă și