Educational leaders’ perceptions of multicultural education in teachers’ professional development: a case study from a Canadian school district

ABSTRACT

This Paper presents and discusses the findings of an empirical qualitative study that was conducted in one school district in British Columbia, Canada. The paper explores the perspectives of the educational leaders and their understanding of multicultural education and how they implement it in the school district's teachers' professional development (ProD) and in-service education. It discusses the theoretical frameworks that shape the participants’ choices and actions concerning how they educate and support teachers to handle the complexities of diversity and the changing demographics in the school district. The findings highlight the dominant liberal framework of multicultural education, the systemic barriers to move beyond the tokenistic approach of cultures and the organizational constraints to move towards transformative, critical multiculturalism and anti-racism education in teachers’ training and professional development. The paper proposes critical transformative multiculturalism as an alternative to transform teacher education and engage with educational reform from a social justice framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Multicultural education
• professional development
• critical multiculturalism
• in-service education
• transformative framework

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Neila Miled

Neila Miled is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Educational Studies, her research engages with feminist post/decolonial theory, critical ethnography and participatory visual methods to explore the social and cultural contexts of education in relation to (im)migrant/refugee and transnational youth. she is focusing on the entanglements of multiculturalism, (im)migration and school experiences and how they impact Muslim youth identities and their sense of belonging to Canada. Neila is also interested in exploring multicultural education in teachers’ education and professional development and the discourses and practices around multiculturalism and multicultural education in Canada.