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TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION

Aleksandra Petrovic, PhD, Marija Nikolic, Dragan Janjetovic, MA

During the year 2000 the Institute for Educational Research carried out research on the situation in the area of intercultural education on the sample consisting of elementary- and secondary school teachers.

The aim of research, exploratory in character, was to examine teachers' assessments of the presence and appropriateness of intercultural education content in textbooks currently in use. The subject of research was teachers' attitudes towards contents related to culture and history of dominant ethnic groups in former Yugoslavia.

The objectives of research was to examine the following characteristics of teachers' attitudes towards intercultural education:

1. the familiarity of the concept of intercultural education and needs for changes in the field

2. teachers' opinions of the need for presence of other nations' culture and history contents in curricula

3. teachers' assessments whether other nations' culture and history contents in the textbooks they use currently are appropriately distributed

4. teachers' assessments whether those contents are sufficiently present

5. teachers' opinions of intercultural education goals and ranking of the goals according to degree of significance assigned by teachers

Also, investigations comprised teachers' assessments of appropriateness and sufficiency of Serbian people's history and culture contents presence. Teachers also assessed the extent to which the most important intercultural education goals are achieved by textbooks they use, and assessed and suggested the directions for changes in curricula related to intercultural dimension.

This is only a survey of essential and most prominent results.

SAMPLE AND METHOD

To collect data, a questionnaire, specially designed for the research, was used to examine teachers' attitudes towards intercultural education content and its distribution in school textbooks currently in use.

The sample consisted of 72 elementary- and secondary school teachers from Serbia and Republic of Srpska. The sample comprised junior-grade teachers in Serbian Language, History, Geography, Art, and Music Culture teachers.

RESULTS

The majority of teachers included in the sample are familiar with the concept of intercultural education - 91.2% (52) respond that they are familiar with the concept, while only 8.8% (5) are not familiar.

Also, the majority of teachers think that intercultural education content should be present in textbooks - 78.9% (56), whereas 21.1% (15) think that intercultural education with its goals should not be present in textbooks.

The teachers also responded whether it was necessary for contents of other nations' history and culture to be present in textbooks, primarily of dominant ethnic groups from former Yugoslavia. Teachers' opinions of the necessity for intercultural content presence for individual ethnic groups are distributed as follows:

Table 1.

Teachers also assessed the presence of contents related to history and culture of other nations in textbooks they use. The Table to follow shows teachers' assessments of the presence of intercultural education content for dominant ethnic groups in former Yugoslavia:

Table 2.

The subject of investigations also involved teachers' opinions of intercultural education objectives. Teachers were offered a number of the most relevant goals whose attainment intercultural education is intended for and teachers were asked to rank them according to the degree of significance. The Table to follow shows the classification of intercultural education goals according to the degree of significance as assigned by teachers:

1. Understanding culture of one's own nation

2. Stimulating national identity development

3. Developing tolerance to other cultures and nations' difference

4. Acquisition of knowledge about other nations' cultures

5. Developing critical thinking of social processes

6. Keeping down biases towards other nations' history and culture

Teachers assume the most positive attitude towards contents regarding history and culture of Macedonians (52,8 %) and the most negative attitude towards the presence of contents regarding history and culture of Albanians (only 34,7 % of them are in favour of Albanian contents). Teachers are sharply divided over incorporation of contents dealing with history and culture of Slovenes and Croats and treat identically both groups (48,6 % approves the presence of Slovene and Croatian contents ) whereas a smaller number of them (43,1 %) thinks that contents concerning history and culture of Muslims should be represented. The outcomes of our research point to the necessity of inclusion of more contents treating history and culture of Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Muslims and other ethnic groups from ex -Yugoslavia in curricula of the Republic of Serbia.

The latest curicular changes in 2001 shows lack of intercultural dimension and continuance of focusing on national contents in history and mother tongue syllabi.

Changes of contents concerning history and culture of ethnic groups from the area of former Yugoslavia are a prerequisite for introduction of intercultural dimension and to attain these goals it will be also necessary to conduct in-service teacher training.