Supporting student-teachers in the multicultural classroom

The linguistic and cultural diversity which increasingly characterises European schools raises questions for both teachers and teacher educators. Can the diversity present in the learning environment be used constructively in building positive attitudes towards diversity in wider society? This study, based on a corpus of interviews with student primary school teachers engaged in a two-year programme of initial teacher education in France, investigates their readiness to meet the challenges of the multicultural classroom. Their attitudes towards the cultural and linguistic diversity of their classrooms, and their capacity to go beyond simply 'managing' the situation are analysed. The results suggest that without major changes in approach at the levels of teacher education, schools administration and within schools themselves; the rich possibilities to develop positive attitudes to inclusion and interculturality offered by the presence of plurilingual and pluricultural children in primary school classrooms will continue to be overlooked.