Teachers’ viewpoints about other’s actions: Implications for multicultural education

Abstract

This study examines how teachers in different national contexts respond to the actions taken by the main characters as they are represented in two short stories and one movie that embody multicultural themes. The assumption is that the teachers’ viewpoints displayed in their responses to actions of others in the short stories and movie in this study may very well manifest in and impinge upon their teaching diverse student population and translation of multicultural curriculum. More specifically, embedded in the teachers’ responses to actions of others are their assumptions about success, failure, right, or wrong in everyday life including in multicultural curricular and education. The questions that guided this study are: How are actions of others represented in the short stories and movie understood and represented by the participating teachers? What categories are used by these teachers to represent their viewpoints? Where do these categories come from and how might they relate to relevant external forces and structures of society? What are the consequences of the teachers’ viewpoints about the actions of others represented in the short stories and movie with respect forging more productive forms of multicultural education?