PREPARING TEACHERS FOR MULTICULTURAL SCHOOLS

Abstract

Teachers throughout Europe have to adapt to heterogeneous classes and respond to the learning needs of pupils with diverse linguistic or cultural backgrounds. This paper reports some of the findings of an Erasmus Intensive Programme that was set up to address the issue of educational inclusion. The programme gave twenty student teachers the opportunity to discuss inclusive teaching strategies and to develop the attitudes needed for working in inclusive environments. The aim of the study is to identify the student teachers’ representations of inclusive education and provide deeper understanding of what these conceptions involve. The findings suggest that the student teachers participating in this study have unclear ideas about inclusion, which in turn has implications for the overall in-service and pre-service education offered to teachers.