PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS: DOES CULTURAL RESPONSIVENESS AFFECT ANTICIPATED SELF-DETERMINATION TO TEACH IN SPECIFIC SETTINGS?

Abstract

Motivation to teach is essential to educating all children in the public schools. This study examined the anticipated self-determination of pre-service teachers to teach in classroom settings that varied in the ethnic and racial composition of the students in the classes. Additionally the cultural responsiveness of participants was measured to examine whether high/low cultural responsiveness interacted with the specific contexts given. Ninety-seven participants from seven university teacher preparation programs, provided answers to a multi-faceted online survey assessing their cultural responsiveness and self-determination to teach in classrooms containing majority White, majority Hispanic, or majority African American students. The participants were assigned a scenario after answering the cultural responsiveness measurement followed by a scale that was designed to measure their anticipated self-determination to teach in that specific setting. The research findings revealed that both cultural responsiveness and the scenarios related to prospective teacher anticipated motivation for working with specific groups of students, but these two constructs were linearly independent of one another (no interaction). Additionally, data indicated that pre-service teachers were not significantly and positively developing their cultural responsiveness understanding. Results generally supported cultural beliefs and limitations of pre-service teacher's feelings of anticipated competence, relatedness, and autonomy with students different from themselves. Further investigation provided interesting stereotypical belief comments that were aligned with the differing scenarios assigned to the participants.