TEACHER SELF-EFFICACY IN A MULTICULTURAL ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION PROGRAM

As the United States embraces cultural diversity, educators need to feel a sense of preparedness to effectively master culturally responsive teaching which is vital to students’ academic growth and development. Drawing on the interpretivist- constructive paradigm and self-efficacy theory, this narrative inquiry study, examined teacher’s beliefs, attitudes and perceptions, with regards to their culturally relevant pedagogy and the impact on their multicultural students’ academic achievement and social success. Eight teacher candidates, seven females and one male (Caucasian), who teach at a multicultural alternative education program in New York State participated in two interviews, one face to face and the other a follow-up through email. NVivo transcription service was used to transcribe the data. Hand coding and analytic memos assisted in analyzing the rich, thick experiences of the teachers in their multicultural classrooms. Six major themes emerged from the analysis of the data, cultural proficiency, cultural challenges, educational attributes, instructional strategies, cultural beliefs and cultural competence. The findings revealed that teacher participants believe they would have accomplished a greater level of self-efficacy in their multicultural classrooms, if the challenges that inhibit their performance, were non-existent and that they value their students shared cultural knowledge, experiences, accomplishments developed despite of the challenges. This study proved to be purposeful and meaningful because it highlighted how the teachers’ self-efficacy is being challenged due to the numerous issues shared in the findings. This research could help other alternative education teachers learn how to better withstand the challenges they might face while implementing their best practices. The study shared the limitations, delimitations, recommendations for future research, and recommendations for practice