Cultural Competence: Developing and Assessing Multicultural Proficiency for Teachers and School Personnel in Hawaii

2010

Caryl Hitchcock

Teachers were recruited from the mainland of the United States to work in rural areas in the State of Hawaii to meet the high demand for personnel. But often there is a mismatch between the culture of the island residents and that of the new teachers. To alleviate this mismatch, a workshop was developed to promote multicultural proficiency of school personnel focusing on Asian/Pacific cultures. One hundred teachers, administrators and staff (including custodians and cafeteria workers) from four rural elementary schools participated in a three hour workshop. The workshop consisted of three activities: (a) self-awareness, (b) awareness of Asian/Pacific Island cultures, and (c) instructional strategies and resources to support culturally diverse students. A mixed repeated measures design was used to make comparisons between the workshop participants? responses on pre/post administrations of the Multicultural Assessment of Proficiency (MAP) scale, a questionnaire designed and developed to measure the effects of the workshop. Results indicated that all participants improved significantly and that three factors accounted for the majority of the variance: knowledge of strategies and resources, awareness of self/others (beliefs), and willingness to take future action. Limitations, suggestions for future research, and implications for practice are discussed.

Peer-reviewed publications in scholarly journals Published/In Press

Professionals

Electronic (disc, CD, 508 compliant web posting)

N/A