Special Education Preservice Teachers Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy

Book excerpt: The racial and ethnic composition of our nation and schools are changing. Yet the demographics of teachers in the United States do not reflect the growing diversity that exists within classrooms today. There have been increases in the culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student population over the last two decades; however, these changes have not been realized in the diversification of educators in the field. Disproportionality data of CLD students in special education amplify the need to train all preservice educators to be culturally responsive in their practices in an effort to reduce the number of CLD learners who may be inappropriately referred for special education. This sequential explanatory mixed methods study examined preservice special education teachers' (N = 54) culturally responsive self-efficacy beliefs and the factors and experiences that influenced their self-efficacy through semi-structured interviews (n = 8). This study sought to extend the work of Siwatu (2011a) by administering the culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy (CRTSE) scale and modifying it to include the language of disability (Chu & Garcia, 2014). Results indicate that special education preservice teachers have moderately high CRTSE for teaching CLD learners with disabilities. Differences and commonalities between high and low self-efficacy groups are discussed.