Multilingual and multicultural pre-service teachers - recruitment, engagement and retention
Project team:
Much contemporary educational research notes an increase in the diversity of linguistic and cultural backgrounds represented in school student cohorts across Australia. Observations have been made that teacher workforces do not reflect the same linguistic and cultural backgrounds as students.
Multilingual teachers are vital for Languages education in Australia, one of the eight key learning areas of the Australian Curriculum and state curricula. Demand is building for an expanding range of community and world languages to be taught across Australian schools. Beyond the Languages learning area, there is increasing recognition of the importance of linguistic diversity in the teaching workforce, as teachers from diverse backgrounds contribute an expanded range of languages, knowledges, ways of thinking and ways of being that to the Australian educational landscape.
At a time when there is an increasing need to recruit and retain teachers from diverse backgrounds, little is known about the linguistic and cultural diversity amongst pre-service teachers in Australian teacher education. The aim of this research project is to understand how multilingual and multicultural pre-service teachers are recruited, engaged and retained in initial teacher education programs in Australia. The multilingual and multicultural pre-service teachers in focus in this project include both local and international students, who bring different sets of experience, languages and knowledges to teaching.
Research Questions:
• Who are the multilingual students in teacher education programs, how many are there, and what are they studying?
• What are the experiences of these teachers at different stages of their education and practice?
• How is a multilingual stance developed through teacher education programs?
• How can recruitment, engagement and retention of these pre-service teachers be improved across all curriculum areas?
