Exploring Pre-Service Teachers’ Attitudes, Beliefs, and Concerns Toward Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in Alberta
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Inclusive education, which emphasizes equitable educational opportunities for all students, requires meaningful support for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners in mainstream classrooms (Alberta Education, 2013; Specht & Thompson, 2022). Teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and concerns significantly shape their instructional decisions and expectations, thus impacting students’ academic and social experiences (Carley Rizzuto, 2017; Klehm, 2014). Despite policy commitments to inclusion, educators continue to report feeling unprepared to support CLD students, highlighting a gap between inclusive education policy and everyday classroom realities (Alberta Teachers’ Association, 2021; Hansen-Thomas et al., 2016). Given the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in Alberta schools (Kindleman, 2020; Statistics Canada, 2021a), it is critical to understand how pre-service teachers perceive their preparedness and identify factors that influence their attitudes, beliefs, and concerns toward teaching CLD students. Although international research has provided general insights into teacher perceptions of inclusive education (Senyshyn & Martinelli, 2021; Taylor et al., 2016), there remains limited Canadian-specific research examining pre-service teachers’ perspectives regarding CLD students’ education. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the attitudes (comfort and openness), beliefs (integration and support), and concerns (equity and wellbeing) of 79 pre-service teachers enrolled in the Bachelor of Education program at the University of Alberta. I also explored how prior experiences along with specific demographic factors, such as pre-service teachers' own identities, personal interactions, formal coursework, teaching experiences, and training routes, may influence these perspectives. Data were collected through an online survey adapted from validated inclusive education instruments. Stacked bar plots were employed to visually examine trends and patterns in participants’ responses, and non-parametric statistical tests were used to analyze the ordinal survey data. Among demographic and experiential factors, meaningful personal interactions with CLD individuals emerged as a statistically significant predictor of higher comfort levels and more inclusive attitudes toward teaching CLD students. Regarding Attitudes, participants expressed greater openness to teaching CLD students but lower comfort levels in areas such as feedback, discipline, mental health, and family engagement. In terms of Beliefs, participants supported the integration of CLD students into mainstream classrooms and the importance of providing appropriate school-based supports. With respect to Concerns, participants showed greater concerns around systemic issues, such as grading fairness, representation, and access, than about CLD students’ social-emotional wellbeing, including peer relationships and mental health. Results indicated that while pre-service teachers generally hold inclusive perspectives, they feel less confident translating these perspectives into effective teaching practice, particularly when navigating complex interpersonal or culturally responsive teaching situations. The significance of personal interaction as a predictor highlights the value of real-world experiences in shaping teacher candidates’ comfort level and responsiveness toward CLD students. Findings from this study can be leveraged to support university instructors, teacher education programs, pre-service teachers, and community organizations. Specifically, these findings emphasize training on practical skills, cultural responsiveness, and meaningful engagement with CLD communities. Overall, this study contributes to the growing body of Canadian research by offering context-specific insights into the perspectives of pre-service teachers at the University of Alberta regarding their preparedness to support CLD student populations.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".