Date of Award
12-17-2016
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctorate of Education, Ed.D.
College
College of Education
Department
Education
First Advisor
Angela Owusu-Ansah, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Anne Grey, Ed.D.
Third Advisor
Cathryn Lambeth, Ed.D.
Abstract
In this study, I explored the possibility of prospective teachers’ development toward cultural competency, fortuitously or incidentally, as a result of intercultural experiences while tutoring diverse preK-12 students. I investigated 25 prospective teachers’ growth toward cultural competency as they participated in a ten-week cross-cultural tutoring program designed to help children from different ethnic, socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds develop reading skills. These prospective teachers were composed of first year students in an undergraduate program prior to entering into teacher preparation coursework and pre-service teachers in the final year of teacher preparation program completing their teaching practice in K-12 schools. This phenomenological multiple-case study yielded findings from open-ended online questionnaires, observations, a reflexive journal, review of a final written reflection, and focus group interview sessions and revealed the following findings for prospective teachers: (1) the value of early, community-based field experiences, (2) that fortuitous aspects of intercultural experiences can reduce, to varying degrees, a cultural deficit perspective and (3) how a cross-cultural experience and reflection lead to fortuitous development toward cultural competency. Finally, emerging conceptual change was evidence of prospective teachers’ development toward cultural competency.