Chapter 2: Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers: An Intercultural Developmental Approach

In the past 20 years, conceptual frameworks have been developed that describe the characteristics of culturally responsive teachers. The concept of culturally responsive teaching developed within teacher education is a discipline-specific articulation of the concept of intercultural competence developed within the field of intercultural communication. The dominant theory that explains the development of intercultural competence, Bennett’s (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), can be used to articulate a more developmentally appropriate approach to teacher education. Such an approach is crucial if teacher educators are to design curricula that address preservice teachers’ current levels of intercultural competence and challenge and support them as they transform their worldviews in ways that are necessary for them to become culturally responsive teachers.