Cultural Experiences of Early Childhood Teachers and the Relationship to Self-Reported Multicultural Teaching Competencies

Abstract

Various studies around multicultural education have looked at ways to identify the multicultural teaching competencies teachers need to teach diverse learners. Many of these studies have closely focused on teacher's perceptions, sensitiveness and behavior. However, there are limited studies regarding how teacher's cultural experiences are associated with multicultural teaching competencies. This chapter looked at the cultural experiences of early childhood teachers and how those relate to the teacher's multicultural teaching competencies. Fifty-seven early childhood teachers were investigated that were recruited from a state early childhood education conference by completing The Wayson's multicultural teaching scale. Positive correlations were identified suggesting a possible link between teacher's cultural experiences and their multicultural teaching competencies.