Learning to teach history in culturally diverse classrooms

This paper examines prospective history teachers' thinking about ethnic and cultural diversity and their experiences of learning to teach about history in multicultural classrooms. The paper reviews the findings of a follow-up study of 22 Finnish student teachers during their nine-month teacher education programme. The data consist of questionnaire data and various written assignments of this sample, plus interviews with nine selected persons. According to the results, signs of continuity and transformation are apparent in the student teachers' thinking. The informants frequently described problems related to diversity, although most of them did not see diversity as changing their way of teaching history as such.