Weighty Perceptions: A Study of the Attitudes and Beliefs of Preservice Teacher Education Students Regarding Diversity and Urban Education

Twenty-first century predictions forecast highly diverse, urban students and predominantly white, monolingual, interculturally limited teachers as the makeup of the new millennium's schools. To avoid a cultural crash, today's potential teaching force must be prepared for tomorrow's students by teacher educators in colleges and universities. Helping future teachers understand what they believe about education in general and, specifically, culturally diverse populations of students can provide an important key for that preparation. This article describes one college of education's efforts to make implicit beliefs explicit through survey data, its application of data to programs, and its plans for continuing research. © 1999 Human Sciences Press, Inc.