Chapter 2: Preparing Future Teachers as Advocates of Inclusion: Intercultural Competency and Educational Psychology

Future educators will face job tasks that require working with increasingly diverse populations within U.S. schools. In addition, global citizenship, a concept that emphasizes the interconnections and commonalities found across world societies (Pashby & Andreotti, 2015), has become an added goal for many classrooms and school systems. Intercultural competence, a developmental competence that allows a person to interact in respectful and meaningful ways with other people that come from different backgrounds, is one way to address these factors of student diversity and global citizenship skills in schools (Perry & Southwell, 2011). Pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and college professors with intercultural competency skills are better able to establish inclusive classroom climates. Inclusive education requires the participation of all members of an educational community and strives for the elimination of social exclusion based on race, social class, ethnicity, religion, gender, and ability within education systems (Ainscow & Sandill, 2010).