TY - JOUR
T1 - Interculturally differentiated instruction
T2 - Reflections from Cyprus classrooms
AU - Neophytou, Lefkios
AU - Valiandes, Stavroula
AU - Hajisoteriou, Christina
N1 - Funding Information:
education policy, developed by the state and the Ministry of Education and Culture, has adopted the rhetoric of interculturalism and inclusion to respond to immigration. According to the national curricula, including all students regardless of their origin suggests the creation of democratic schools that provide equal educational opportunities for access, participation, and success by respecting diversity and cultural, linguistic and religious pluralism.13 However, research asserts that there is a gap between policy rhetoric and practice.14 In practice, culturally diverse students are still seen as in need of assimilation in order to overcome their deficiency and disadvantage.15
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, University of Nicosia. All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/3/1
Y1 - 2018/3/1
N2 - Nowadays, teachers are called to address the needs of all students in their culturally-diverse and mixed-ability classrooms. Despite the widespread concern about the underachievement and marginalisation of students with disabilities and students from diverse cultural backgrounds; the reasons for this have, for too long, been attributed to the students and their families, rather than to the curricular, pedagogical, and organisational structures of schools and the inequitable framework of our society. Within this context, two pedagogical approaches appeared in the research and literature: intercultural education and differentiated instruction that only recently have been combined to form interculturally differentiated teaching. In this paper, we examine the implementation of interculturally differentiated instruction by Cypriot teachers in real, mixed ability, and culturally diverse classroom settings. Our analysis indicates that teachers are unable to connect intercultural competence with educational effectiveness, consequently failing to create inclusive instructional practises that could maximise learning potential along with intercultural competence for all children. Based on these findings, we question the effectiveness of teacher professional development on interculturally differentiated teaching.
AB - Nowadays, teachers are called to address the needs of all students in their culturally-diverse and mixed-ability classrooms. Despite the widespread concern about the underachievement and marginalisation of students with disabilities and students from diverse cultural backgrounds; the reasons for this have, for too long, been attributed to the students and their families, rather than to the curricular, pedagogical, and organisational structures of schools and the inequitable framework of our society. Within this context, two pedagogical approaches appeared in the research and literature: intercultural education and differentiated instruction that only recently have been combined to form interculturally differentiated teaching. In this paper, we examine the implementation of interculturally differentiated instruction by Cypriot teachers in real, mixed ability, and culturally diverse classroom settings. Our analysis indicates that teachers are unable to connect intercultural competence with educational effectiveness, consequently failing to create inclusive instructional practises that could maximise learning potential along with intercultural competence for all children. Based on these findings, we question the effectiveness of teacher professional development on interculturally differentiated teaching.
KW - Cultural diversity
KW - Differentiated instruction
KW - Inclusive instruction
KW - Intercultural education
KW - Mixed-ability classes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064942349&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85064942349
SN - 1015-2881
VL - 30
SP - 397
EP - 408
JO - Cyprus Review
JF - Cyprus Review
IS - 1
ER -