Global Teaching in Indiana: A Quantitative Case Study of K-12 Public School Teachers

Striving to educate globally competent, multiliterate citizens has been at the forefront of many initiatives in the U.S. In Indiana, the Department of Education and higher education institutions have taken steps to internationalize teacher education. However, previous research in Indiana has shown that even teachers who believe that global education is important may not be teaching it. The purpose of this study was to describe current K-12 Indiana public school teachers’ description of their practices that promote students’ global readiness using the Teaching for Global Readiness Scale. The conceptual framework Teaching for Global Readiness is an empirically validated model of four dimensions: situated practice in the local context, integrated global learning with the standard course of study, instruction from a critical frame, and transactional experiences where students engage in active learning through intercultural collaboration. Overall, teachers scored highest on the subscale of situated practice (e.g., valuing diversity, breaking down stereotypes), and lowest on transactional experiences that involved technology for cross-cultural collaboration. Teaching experience and travel abroad were not found to be a determining factor for being able to teach for global competence