Stage model of normality reflections. How teachers reflect differently on cultural heterogeneity in the school context

Abstract

Today’s prevalent cultural heterogeneity in society, schooling and teaching poses a challenge to teacher education to provide teachers with the necessary skills to enable them to develop productive measures for schooling and teaching in a multicultural context. Previous models which conceptualise the acquisition of intercultural skills, however, focus too little on the specific context of predominantly monocultural schooling. The research project presented in this paper has thus designed prototypical reflection examples as to how (future) teachers could reflect on cultural differences specific to the school context and incorporates them into a stage model of normality reflections. In this way, different levels of reflection regarding cultural differences in monocultural school contexts are described which can be used for diagnostic purposes and further developed in teacher education.