Shaping one traditional special educator preparation program toward more cultural competence

Educational professionals agree that traditional preservice preparation has been inadequate in preparing educators to teach culturally and/or linguistically diverse students. Reasons for this lack of preparation are generally identified as an insufficient number of diverse teacher candidates and poor infusion of culturally competent practices across programs. Most universities and colleges have responded to these needs, but neglect the need to improve faculty members' own cultural competence. We present the journey taken by one traditional special education teacher preparation program to increase the number of diverse candidates enrolled, infuse cultural diversity competence across the program, and improve faculty members' sensitivity and appropriate responses toward cultural differences.