Do teachers’ cultural beliefs matter for students’ school adaptation? A multilevel analysis of students’ academic achievement and psychological school adjustment

Abstract

Based on two large-scale studies from Germany, we examined how different types of teachers’ cultural beliefs are related to immigrant students’ school adaptation. Specifically, we investigated the relationship of teachers' multicultural beliefs appreciating cultural diversity, their egalitarian beliefs focusing on all students' similarities and their assimilationist beliefs that immigrant students should conform to the mainstream context with immigrant students' academic achievement and psychological school adjustment as indicators of their school adaptation. We also explored all of these associations for non-immigrant students. Study 1 used data on the multicultural, egalitarian, and assimilationist beliefs of German language (NTeachers = 220) and mathematics (NTeachers = 245) teachers and on students’ achievement and feelings of helplessness in German language classes (NStudents = 2606) and mathematics classes (NStudents = 2851) as well as students’ school satisfaction. Study 2 analyzed data on teachers’ multicultural and egalitarian beliefs (NTeachers = 456) and students’ achievement and self-concept in mathematics (NStudents = 4722). Overall, multilevel analyses revealed no relationship between teachers’ cultural beliefs and any of the indicators of immigrant and non-immigrant students’ school adaptation. These findings challenge the notion that overall, teachers’ cultural beliefs effectively translate into students’ school adaptation.

Pre-service teachers’ beliefs about linguistic and cultural diversity in schools: the role of opportunities to learn during university teacher training

“…The mean scores for multicultural beliefs and egalitarian beliefs also exceeded the theoretical mean of the scale (M = 3.5) with higher means in Group 1 than in Group 3 (multicultural beliefs: M c1 = 5.03, SD c1 = 0.63; M c3 = 4.94, SD c3 = 0.78; egalitarian beliefs: M c1 = 5.25, SD c1 = 0.69; M c3 = 5.11, SD c3 = 0.83). Comparing these results with findings from prior research with German samples, the multicultural and egalitarian beliefs were lower in Hachfeld et al (2015) and Schotte et al (2022) than in the current study. Yet, in interpreting these differences, it should be considered that Hachfeld et al (2015) surveyed teachers who were at the beginning of their professional careers while Schotte et al (2022) included a sample of German in-service teachers.…”

“…Comparing these results with findings from prior research with German samples, the multicultural and egalitarian beliefs were lower in Hachfeld et al (2015) and Schotte et al (2022) than in the current study. Yet, in interpreting these differences, it should be considered that Hachfeld et al (2015) surveyed teachers who were at the beginning of their professional careers while Schotte et al (2022) included a sample of German in-service teachers. 1 Results for OTL in the subsample of advanced students revealed mean scores (M = 2.40, SD = 1.57) just below the theoretical mean of the scale (M = 2.5), indicating that the students attended at least one course on average for most of the topics.…”

“…1 The mean values for multicultural beliefs were M = 4.71 in the study by Hachfeld et al (2015) and M = 4.89 in the study by Schotte et al (2022). For egalitarian beliefs, the mean values were M = 4.89 (Hachfeld et al, 2015) and M = 4.99 (Schotte et al, 2022).…”

“…One factor that may influence academic achievement in culturally diverse settings is how teachers deal with cultural and linguistic diversity in the classroom (Gay, 2002;Aronson and Laughter, 2016;Schotte et al, 2022). Thus, teachers should show cultural awareness, recognizing the strengths of cultural diversity and adapting their instructional practice to the experiences, prior knowledge, and frames of reference of a diverse student population (Civitillo and Juang, 2019;Romijn et al, 2021).…”

Teacher attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual students: Evidence for intergroup contact theory and secondary transfer effects

“…In terms of social contact, future studies can also examine different kinds of network contact, including online contacts and workplace contacts, and the perceived quality of contact with family members, which can be positive negative, or neutral. Furthermore, future studies can examine the consequences of pre-service teacher attitudes and actions when dealing with sexual minority students in class, such as changes in judgment accuracy (Tobisch & Dresel, 2017), reactions to homophobic bullying (Klocke et al, 2019;Nappa et al, 2018;Zotti et al, 2019), and sexual minority students' school adaptation (Schotte et al, 2022), to help create safe spaces for the growing number of sexual minority students who disclose their sexual orientations at school. Despite these limitations, the findings of Study 1 and Study 2 have implications for teacher education and teacher professionalism.…”